How your identity can trap your absolute success
Absolute success. What does success mean to you? What does it look like and do you have your own version of what absolute success means? Wherever you are on your success journey, there is one major hurdle to be aware of. One thing, like a piece of velcro, that can stick to you and prevent you from reaching it. That sticky thing is the labels you consistently use about yourself. Your labels start from the throwaway statements we say about ourselves. Soon they become our beliefs. Our beliefs shape our identity, and who we think we are influence our results and life. Furthermore, our beliefs and phrases we repeat become habits. And habits are the foundation of all success. Moreover, as our habits operate outside our conscious awareness, we aren’t always aware of them.
Only when you start to question your beliefs can you shift your labels. When you dig into exactly what you say about yourself and how you see yourself, will you free yourself to reach more of the absolute success you desire. Furthermore, if you fail to do this, you will fall short of reaching your potential and becoming the person you desire to be. So, how do we get beneath the veil of our identity shapers and free ourselves from this sticky velcro?
I am labels are often the ones that trap your absolute success
Last week, while I was working with a client here in my office on the Sunshine Coast, we were doing some work on anxiety. I asked her how long she had felt anxious and she said, ‘I have always been anxious. I am an anxious person.’ I asked her how she knew she was anxious and how she did anxious? After a puzzled look on her face, she realised that the phrase, I am always anxious had become part of her identity. She wasn’t sure where it came from, or how she ‘did’ anxiety. Ultimately, she realised it was a feeling. Around the feeling she had created a story which shaped her life. Every time she experienced the feeling she told herself she was anxious. After a few times it became a habit, and her story. She became an anxious person.
What do you do when you are anxious?
What happens when you say you are anxious? Your words and stories influence how you feel and what you do, and vice versa. Then your body creates chemicals that match the words. This works in reverse too. When you say that you feel anxious, you will create more anxious feelings, build on the story and prove to yourself you are anxious. The trouble here is instead of saying there is a feeling in my tummy we say I am feeling anxious which soon becomes I am anxious.
What do you say when you are stressed?
‘I am stressed?’
And if someone asks you if have children?
‘I am a mother, or I am a father.’
Perhaps you say ‘I am married.’ ‘I am divorced.’ ‘I am single.’
And what you do for a living? ‘I am a business owner.’ ‘I am a CEO.’
Labels are necessary to give us a sense and purpose, yet sometimes we add a bunch of labels that we take ownership of yet aren’t useful. Like gathering lots of material possessions that clutter up our space and keep us living in clutter and material things we never use but hang around.
Labels give us a sense of meaning and can help us feel a sense of importance
We will spend time and energy doing the things we love. And so we tell people what we do. We give ourself a label that defines our sense of self. We say we are an athlete, a tennis player, a business owner, a mother or carer. Our labels are our areas of influence and focus. However, when we take on labels that don’t serve us, we need to shake them off. Detach from them.
Labels like ‘I am an anxious person.’ or ‘I am always stressed, fix themselves to our identity. Rather like wearing a favourite sweater, we identify ourselves this way. Furthermore, as they become habitual and operate outside our awareness, in our subconscious mind, we find ourselves running in a default pattern of anxiety or stress or not good enough.
Statements such as ‘I am not experienced enough to apply for this job’ erode our absolute success
When you extend this to a sentence such as: ‘I am not experienced enough to apply for this job,’ or ‘I don’t know enough to get this job,’ what happens next?
Your thoughts become your beliefs and your beliefs influence your results. The label of not experienced or not knowing enough means you probably won’t go for the job. So the chance of new opportunities, a promotion, more money or new experiences fall by the wayside. An opportunity lost because of a sticky label or old daggy sweater.
Decide to explore your I am labels to ensure your chances of absolute success
Make a decision to explore your ‘I am’s.’ Take stock of your labels and look at them through the lens of curiosity. Be curious and ask how this could be limiting your life? How is it keeping you away from achieving your absolute success? Whatever you spend most of your conscious and unconscious time thinking of, will grow in your reality. Energy flows where attention goes. So next time you hear yourself saying ‘I am,’ if it is anything less than positive and inspiring, be aware.
Remember, awareness is the first step to change. When you become aware, then choose a new statement that separates the label from you, your identity. Try saying ‘There is a feeling of anxiety, and I am not my anxiety. I will breathe and take one small step.’ Or, ‘I will give it a go, in relation to the job opportunity.’ Whatever you do make sure you do not limit your life by labelling yourself with the wrong velcro like I am labels. Just as you can change your sweater, pants for shorts, you can easily remove a label, and replace it with a different, more inspiring one!
How have you allowed your labels to shape you and what you do? Furthermore, are they sabotaging your success? Are they holding you back from achieving your absolute success? If so, choose some new labels. Pick ones that serve and support your results, champion you to be the awesome human being you are. This is one of the greatest shifts you can do in your thinking and to detach yourself from anxiety, stress, not good enough or anything less than someone who is becoming even more awesome every day!
About the Author
- Curious how Mindset Coaching can help you achieve your results? Schedule a call on my online calendar.
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