(majestic music)
- Every night for a full year before I ever began writing
I stood in front of the mirror with someone else's book
and closed my eyes.
I imagined that this book was of my own.
I pictured myself as a best-selling author
and this physical manifestation of the intangible
my thoughts was of my very own creation.
When setting new goals the first question
that I always ask myself is who must I become
to achieve this specific outcome?
Who must I become to bring this particular goal to life?
I mean, say you want to build a business
that generates $5,000 per day.
To make $5,000 per day in sales then it would make sense
that you must become a person that can make $5,000
per day in sales.
And if you're not making it yet,
bottom line is you're yet to become that person
that can attain that very specific goal.
You simply do not have the mental framework that supports
the attainment, the manifestation of that vision,
yet!
I call this the identity gap.
It's the gap between who you are and
who you need to become to reach your goals.
There will always be a gap because we always
have our sights set on something else that we want.
A vision that we want to bring to life
and the person who we want to become.
A better husband, wife, brother, or sister.
The gap between who you are and who you want to become
is that beautiful gray area in which we experience
our greatness happiness.
Why?
In this beautiful gray area we have a purpose,
we have a mission, we have a reason for living
in the process of this self evolution.
The second we stop evolving is the second
that we lose meaning.
The more goals that we set ourselves the more gaps
that we create.
The more gaps that we create,
the more chasms we cross and the better and more significant
that we feel
and the more likely we are to succeed in the future.
With each chasm crossed we better ourselves.
We become more focused and eventually attain mastery
of our craft until we become the person who has achieved
their goals and not the person who is looking
back at you from the other side of the chasm.
However, if we're standing on the very edge of the cliff
trying to work out how we're going to build a bridge
from one side to the other,
taking the very first step outside of our already
pre-defined identity will set alarm bells off
and we either make a choice to proceed regardless
or end up doing anything but what we really need to do
within that moment.
Unless, unless we quickly evolve and become aware
of what's happening and direct our actions and emotions
more consciously,
we'll eventually turn around and retreat
back to where we feel safe.
In the confines of the framework,
we've either consciously or unconsciously built
for our chosen identity over years and years of experience.
Why?
Why do we do this?
It doesn't make any sense.
Well, it's our subconscious mind's duty to keep us safe.
It's primal instincts leftover from fleeing lions and tigers
that we've still yet to evolve on from
despite our best intentions.
A sense of identity provides us with security and structure
and confidence.
And it keeps our subconscious mind in check.
And the beautiful irony is that to be happy
we have to test the boundaries of who we believe
ourselves to be whilst battling our
subconscious mind's desire to be keep us safe.
We can't have happiness without conflict
and we can't have conflict without happiness.
The new goal is outside of the realms
of what our subconscious mind deems as possible
whilst it's still trying to hold onto the old identity
of who we believed ourselves to be.
That is until of course we can gently coax it along
by educating and surrounding ourselves with others
who have attained a similar goal so it can deem it safe.
This is why we see countless startups fail.
They take an employee identity and attempt to build
a brand new business with it.
The problem is the identity of an employee is akin
to being one of the crew on the ship
instead of the captain in charge.
That's like trying to unlock the door with the wrong key.
It doesn't matter how much you try
and push it or twist it,
it doesn't fit.
It gets stuck or breaks off.
Forcing it never works.
Forcing causes retreat and being locked out
from what you really want.
The reason that I held a physical copy
of an already published book in my hands
every night before I went to sleep was simple.
Before I could become an author
I had to in my mind take on the identity
that I already was one.
Even if all I was doing was closing my eyes
and enjoying the fruits of my future labor
before it had ever come to fruition.
This created new neurological pathways
that meant writing a book and getting it published
was in my realm of possibility.
If you have a big goal that you're yet to achieve
I want you to stop and pause for a moment
and ask yourself have you been using the wrong key
to try and unlock the door?
The answer to this will be your life's work,
it'll be your life's mission.
It will also give you something
that you've never had before,
the insight into why you're not where you want to be yet.
And that my friends, is a key worth searching for.
(majestic music)