Today I want to share with you, what has been so far, one of my biggest revelations through this personal growth journey.
I’ve always believed that no matter where you are in life, you have the opportunity to make a “U-turn” if you want. To make a change if you need it. That no matter your age, your circumstances, where you are in life… it’s never too late to change your life around.
I know men who have fulfilled their lifelong dream of becoming a pilot at the age of 40.
Grandmas who have embraced their true passions and gotten back into the classroom to study what they couldn’t back in the day.
Sixty-year-old divorced or widowed men and women who have been able to find love again or have found peace, happiness, and acceptance in having a true loving relationship with themselves.
People who used their corporate lay-off as an opportunity to embark themselves in the journey of entrepreneurship and finally build the business they never thought they could risk their stability for.
Rebellious teenagers who used to spend their days smoking pot between classes, with absolutely no life purpose in sight, and who are now some of the most driven, self-motivated, and disciplined people I’ve ever met.
But what do these people have in common?
They changed their narrative.
At some point, they got so tired of being trapped in that reality that they decided they no longer wanted to be in that place. Maybe they touched rock bottom (and we all have our own personal version of rock bottom), or they simply decided they had had enough of feeling sorry for themselves, useless, unfulfilled, powerless, angry, or resentful.
They decided they no longer wanted to live on auto-pilot, stuck in the narrative that life put them into or that they had slowly enprisoned themselves in. And so they re-wrote the stories they told themselves about who they were and what was possible and achievable.
Re-invention can only happen when you’re ready to kill the version of yourself that’s stopping you from becoming the person you need to become so that you can have that thing in life you strongly desire.
Whether that’s more freedom, more opportunities, healthier relationships and friendships, a better physical or mental state, better coping mechanisms, a better financial situation, or simply a stronger general sense of fulfillment and gratitude in your life.
Our sense of identity or self-perception is the ONE thing that leads us to stay stuck in our life struggles or overcome them.
Essentially, the way we think about ourselves is what will ultimately lead us to a life that continuously expands, or on the contrary, shrinks and hinders our happiness.
Related Read: Fixed mindset vs. growth mindset and how to make the shift.
So, there it is. One of my biggest ‘aha! moments’ along this personal growth journey so far. Understanding that if we want to be able to make any long-term and sustainable improvements in our life, we need to be ready to change the way we think about ourselves first. We need to be open to take the part of our identitiy that’s not aligned with that new version we’re trying to achieve and let go of it completely. We need to be able to identify, and then dismantle, the story or narrative that’s holding us back.
And although this ‘big revelation’ might seem obvious at first, turns out it’s much easier said than done. If it weren’t, no one would be stuck in a “bad life”, struggling to break unhealthy patterns and habits.
So why is that? Why do we find it so darn difficult to rewrite our story?
To answer this question, we need to talk about the psychology of personality, and how personalities are formed.
Have you ever stopped to think about how you got here? To this life you have today, operating and looking at the world the way that you do? Living where you do, and having the job, friends, status, habits, health, money, mindset or overall lifestyle that you have?
The relationship you have with yourself, the goals you set for yourself, the things you buy or don’t buy, and the opportunities and experiences you take, they’re all significantly shaped by the same thing: Identity and self-perception.
Essentially, the idea of who you think you are.
Without even knowing it, that self-perception or idea of yourself has been dictating plenty of your behaviors and life decisions so far: The way you manage your finances, the money that you don’t have in the bank, the friends and romantic relationships you choose, the rooms you believe you belong in, the jobs and salary you think you qualify for, your health, how you treat your body and the habits you have, the way you speak to yourself, the routines you engage with, even the things that you like and dislike are shaped by your sense of self.
A sense of identity and self-worth that was formed during your early childhood years, through different external inputs that were critical to the development of your personality. In fact, to a great extent, that identity is built upon your past traumas and experiences. Your parents’ and inner circle’s beliefs, fears, and expectations.
And so all these years you’ve been walking around with an identity that has little to do with you and operating through life based on the belief systems that others have projected onto you.
Kind of an unfair lottery, huh?
However, in the same way that we update our phones and devices every once in a while, we can also choose to re-program our inner operating systems if we give ourselves the chance to rediscover who we are under all of those layers and reconnect with our true essence.
So I’m asking you now, ‘who do you want to become?’ and maybe more importantly, ‘who do you not want to be anymore?’ Which parts of you do you want to keep and enhance, and what do you want to leave behind?
This change process will require letting go of the pre-fabricated parts of ourselves that are no longer serving us but that we’re so deeply attached to because they’ve been a part of who we are for so long. So yes, it’s hard work. And more importantly, it’s intentional and consistent work because our learned behaviors will try to keep pushing us back to our old ways, but as long as we are breathing, we have the chance to keep iterating, improving, and changing as much as we need.
If you’ve read this far, I am guessing somewhere deep within you there is a desire to elevate yourself in one way or another. You’re probably picturing it now: the future version of yourself who’s either finally sober, or addiction free, or who has healthier lifestyle habits, stable mental health, a fulfilling job, better personal finances, a confident personality, healthy relationships, or a life with purpose that they’re happy to experience every single day.
Whatever it is, that person you’re envisioning already exists within you, but the person you currently are is not allowing them to come through. And that’s the catch right there: You need to kill one to give birth to the other. They can’t both co-exist.