Why your identity is the reason you’re not succeeding
“You are incredible! Yes, I am talking to you. You are incredible!” When you read that how did it make you feel? Did you believe it? Did you start making excuses in your head or think that I had someone else in mind? I didn’t. I wanted you to know the truth, and that is, you are incredible.
That reaction you just experienced when I told you the truth about who you are can tell you a lot about where your identity is placed and what you are believing about yourself. I am staggered by the increasing statistics around depression. Some sites claim that in the past 30 years depression has almost tripled to one in four people. In this age of the internet, we live with the best possibility for opportunity and success, and yet people are becoming increasingly more tied down by lies that they are believing about themselves and their circumstances. So one has to ask, what has changed?
I believe that our identity is the most influential rudder guiding our lives and has been neglected, misplaced or even abused by ourselves. So what can we do to change this alarming statistic and find some stability in our identity, no matter what season we find ourselves in? I’d like to look at two things that I believe can really help build a powerful, solid identity and help you succeed in life.
1: Place your value in your purpose.
The other day I was speaking to a film maker friend of mine who was in a tough season. We met for coffee and I asked him what was getting him down. “I haven’t made any films for a while”, he said. “Ok, why is it important that you are making films?” I asked. He responded with, “Well it’s what I do, I’m a film maker”. There it was. “I am a film maker”. My friend, despite his fantastic ability and great achievements, was feeling depressed because he had placed his value in what he was doing, so when he wasn’t doing it, he didn’t feel valued.
“When we place all our value in what we DO, our identity is controlled by others.”
When people love what we do, we believe we are loveable. But if people critique or don’t like what we do, we believe they are critiquing or don’t like us. We mustn’t place our identity in what we do, our title, our position, our possessions, our associations, our appearance, or our skills. Each of these places control of your identity into the hands of someone else and won’t satisfy your hunger for identity.
So if our value is not placed in what we do, have, or hang around then what are we left with? Well in the case of my friend, we spent some time finding out why he loved making films and what we discovered was that he loved to make people happy and influence people.This simple truth made him very excited.
I too am a film maker and I had to learn that while I love film making, what I do is the vehicle that I use to fulfil my purpose. I often joke that if I could be a hairdresser, barrister or anything, as long as I could tell someone “you’re incredible and powerful and you can be the hero of your life”, then I’d be really content.
2: Change the way you see yourself.
Alright, let's revisit my opening statement, “You are incredible!” If you struggled to believe this about yourself what can we do to change that?
We have this incredible filter in our brain called the thalamus. This is the part that when we want to buy a new red car, it causes us notice all the red cars on the road. They were always there but now we notice them. Well this incredible little part of our brain is what we are going to use to help change the way we see ourselves.
“Only you have the power to truely form who you want to be.”
Re-training our brains takes time but is really quite simple. We train it through what we hear and say. Our beliefs about ourselves are shaped by what we continually hear and say about ourselves. Only you have the power to truely form who you want to be. If you look at your circumstances and say, "I can’t change this”, or “who am I to change this?”, then your brain believes that the circumstances are more powerful than you, and so you will most likely do nothing to change the circumstance. Also, our words can literally effect our very beings with what we say out of our mouth. Watch this study by Dr. Masaru Emote. (See link below) Now we are made up of something like 60% water, so our words are literally having a physical effect on our body.
Let's look at some practical things that you can do today to transform the way you think about yourself.
- Look in the mirror and tell yourself "you're incredible, amazing, valuable, and have a bright future". If you find it hard to say those things then start with recording yourself saying them on a phone and listen to them back.
- Get people you trust to tell you the things they think are great about you and record it on your phone so that you can listen to it over and over until you start to believe it. (I have almost 40 recordings that I listen to regularly).
- Change the music you listen to. Music is incredibly powerful. If you're like me, you like to sing along and every one of those lyrics is subconsciously shaping the way we feel or see the world. Find some music that is in line with where you want to go in life. Do a little experiment and go listen to the Lego song Everything is Awesome. Now apart from being mildly annoyed at the repetition, how did it make you feel about what's around you? (See link below)
In conclusion, I do believe that you will find great fulfilment from living out of your purpose, and that as you change the way you think about yourself, you will experience a change in the opportunities you see. Have courage and remember “you are incredible!”
Josh Osborne
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