Change Your Identity - The Way to Lasting Change

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise, connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company, I'm espresso sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You too can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse, and you're listening to the podcast One Life. Creating your identity. Your identity is the most powerful force shaping your life. Said differently, how you show up consistently is what is shaping your life. The problem then becomes, well, how are you showing up? How do you show up consistently? Because it's easy to look for these aspirational times, these blips, where you show up in a different state because you're in a different environment. When you look at the day to day, how you were showing up, what are the results that you're getting in your life? And if you're not where you are in a particular area in your life, it's because there are some disempowering beliefs present, and those beliefs come from a identity. The most powerful force in the human psyche is to remain consistent with how we identify ourselves, said differently, our identity. And so it's very, very important to understand, well, how are we showing up? Like, what is the day to day? How are we showing up day to day and understand, all right, well, what is the identity that we want to have as well as what are the benefits? But before we go into the where we're like, where we are and where we're going to go, let's get clear about what exactly creates your identity. You can think your identity as experiences shaping your identity, like what you've done or sometimes what you haven't done or what you have failed to do. And. And you create this false narrative about your identity. For example, with my coffee, right, I could look at all the trials I had when I was roasting coffee. I spent years developing the roast profiles that I have and looking at those at the different roasts. All the failures I had, I could look at them as, I am a bad roaster, which was actually, when I go into some of the stories, I'll share some of this. It was actually part of the identity I had. But really it was all of these experiences that were actually learning experiences, springboards for me to jump up and to be an expert in my craft. So sometimes the lessons, the learnings, the failures that cause us to learn can create a false identity. So looking at that as well as what do we do repeatedly that could create a new identity as well as just trying something new, trying something we wouldn't normally do, can create a new identity. Because here's the truth, right? You might say I am not X when the truth is that you're a little bit more dynamic than that, you're not one dimensional. So in my, when doing this entire process, when looking at the area of my identity, I was very surprised as I was doing this exercise, I looked at my global beliefs and I was looking at what is life, right? If I were to ask you the question, what is life? Life is what? Fill in that blank. What would you tell me? You might tell me like, well, life is a dance, life is blessed, life is sacred. But how do you show up on the day, on day to day? When I did this exercise, I realized that when I had all these lifts of what life is, the one that stuck out was life is a struggle. And when you look at like if life is a struggle, how does that manifest in your day to day when you say that like, oh, well, you know, hardship and you everyone out for themselves, you start building a model of your world based on this one belief. When the truth is that you can change this model of the world in an instant. But just by adopting and really, really putting focus on something new. Try it out. If I were to tell you, like, well, life is an adventure, what would life be about? Like what life would be about saying yes to all different experiences. There wouldn't be any expectation because you know there's an adventure coming. And think about how that would. Life as an adventure would impact you in your career, in your family, life, with your friends. You show up completely different. So looking at this global belief that I had, and then I looked up like, well, what is the identity that I have for myself? Not the aspirational, not even the aspirational side that I have or how I show up when I am in that great state, right? Because the truth is that we show up. What determines how we show up is the state we're in. Said differently how we are feeling. The state is how you're moving your body, the emotions. And what I realized was that the way I was showing up regularly was restricted, a limited identity. I had beliefs about how I dressed I had beliefs about how I looked. I had beliefs about how my ability to show up and impact others. And while yes, there you can show up differently, but when you show up to consistently in a certain way, or you think about yourself in a certain way, you start to get tunnel vision where you start to say, like, all right, well, this is how I am and it's just not true. You're very, very dynamic and you can choose to change your identity in an instant just by believing something different. And where you may hit some snags there is because you want to stay consistent the your mind, you need to stay consistent with who you identify as. But the truth is, is that if I were to ask somebody else about you, right, they would probably say, oh, Donnie. Donnie is aspirational. Donnie's worldly. Donnie is expert at his craft. They would start going off in on things that normally maybe I wouldn't even wouldn't respond or describe myself with, which is true, right? I may have all of these characteristics, I may be displaying all these qualities, but if I'm not seeing it in my own actions, in my own belief system, it's going to inhibit how I the actions I'm willing to take and how I'm willing to respond. And this is one of the things that I had noticed in doing this exercise was looking at this like, man, no wonder I'm having such a hard time. And yeah, there'd be some good days, but the regular, like how I showed up daily was this feeling of like, oh my God, getting out of bed sometimes felt like a chore. Then I went through this exercise and I got clear looking at, well, how I've been by showing up what has been my identity. And I made like. I mean, I had made comments about like, how I dress, like, dressing like a slob. And. And it's funny to look at some of these things now because the exercise I did, I looked at, well, if I looked at someone else who had and was doing the things that I am doing, even who's dressed the way I dress, like, how would I describe them? And I realized that the characteristics and traits I was using to describe myself were very different from the person that I was, that I was describing in the third person ever, saying, like, oh, that person there who's doing everything I'm doing, oh, this is who they are. But yet I wasn't describing myself. I wasn't giving myself that identity, which was like, wow, that is pretty insightful. Like, so looking at that, I say, well, what is my identity? Because a Lot of time we let this go by the wayside. We act without being clear as to who we really are and who we want to become. So in doing so, I created this vision of who I wanted to become. And I kind of named some of those qualities here. I was like, worldly and expert, outgoing, successful, confident. I rattled off this list and then I went into how it would impact my life and how it would impact my business, my relationships, how I showed up. And it was a very stark contrast versus how I was feeling. And then all of a sudden, as a result, this is new identity, how I would show up. And just from reading the two lists, there was a shift in how I was feeling. Even I feel it in my face. And I actually did this on a video. And you can see, like my, you know, feeling like, you know, that my face was kind of all grunted all of a sudden as I was, as I was reading this, a smile coming to my face and a feeling of power. After doing this exercise, I went out and I was skateboarding. And I noticed as I was going down Lincoln Road here in Miami that these old. This old identity would kind of try to creep in. But because I had this new identity, I just created this new identity that I was focusing on. All of a sudden it was through a new filter and I was able to connect with a different part of me. And that is if there's one point that I really, really want to drive home here. I mean, aside from just getting clear about your identity, how you've been showing up and how you really want to show up and who you want to become, as well as the impact that it's going to have on your life is just for you to realize that you are more. You're not one dimensional, you're very dynamic. You don't show up one way, right? You show up many different ways. But it depends on what is being cued. It depends on what you're calling forth, like the life belief you like. What you believe about life is simply what you're focusing on. So choose to focus on something more powerful. Choose to focus on and build the more empowering identity that's going to move you in the direction you want to go. How do you shift identity? How do you shift your beliefs? Beliefs are formed by doing something right, by doing something repetitively, by trying something new. As I mentioned in the beginning, that you may have formed a disempowering belief of yourself because you tried something, you failed. You tried something, you failed. So then you're like, shit, I'm a failure. But the truth is that it was a learning experience. And the truth is that we can create a positive identity by continually going back to that task and just literally going in with the attention of who you want to become. The other thing is trying something new. I'll give when I was so I'm living in Miami, Florida now. And the funny thing was is if you had asked me like maybe seven years ago before I had ever gone to Miami, I would have told you. I know Miami's not for me. It's shallow, it's superficial. And then I went to with, I went with my siblings for Halloween. We came down to Miami, we got body painted and I had great time fast forward. I mean, I did that twice. And then during COVID I came down here in 2021, I spent a couple months down in Miami and I return each year around the same time in January. And I was like, wow, I really like this place. And this is just a, you know, this is an example, a belief system I had for a place, a city and the people who were living there. Right. The beliefs you have about some place or somebody is the identity that you're creating for them. But I was able to change the identity that I had and I was able to change my belief about the people and the the city by visiting there and putting myself in an environment that wasn't normal, it wasn't comfortable for me. And as a result, now I'm here. So the point of telling you this was for you to just push the boundaries of your identity, to try something new, to put yourself in a different state. Because as a result of that, you're going to be trying, you're going to be fumbling around trying to make sense of the world around you. And as a result, it's going to shape you. But also when you're going into that, just have a make sure that you know the identity that you're building. So this way you could bring out those attributes in your life. So I hope you enjoyed this post on identity because it is the force that is controlling your life and dictating all the results you get within it. So if you, you know, if you this inspired you in some way, if it gave you some clarity as to how you've been showing up your world belief and who gave you some aspirational guidance as to who you want to become and how it's going to impact your life. Leave me a comment. Ask me a question. Share it with somebody. Share it with five people whom you think can benefit from this and I'll leave it again with just with an exercise like who have you been showing up as, what has been your identity and then what is the identity you want to create? And looking at this new identity that you're creating for yourself, how is that going to impact all the areas of your life? Take that paper, that golden document there, read it every single day, day and night, refining it, and just feel how it feels when you reinforce this new identity and you refine, realize, and you read all of the benefits that it's going to bring to your life. And that is it. So I hope you enjoyed this post. Again, please share this with five people whom you know will benefit from listening to this, who maybe need an identity shift or maybe just you want to share because you realize that you haven't been showing up the way you know you want to. So if you like this, please again subscribe, ask a question or comment via my website@donnyrous.com www. O n n y r a u s.com guys, thank you so so much for tuning in. I hope this enriched your life in some way and it just inspired you to keep going on the journey because as we always close with you only get one life. Live fully, live passionately, and most of all live now. God bless you guys and I will see you again next week.