James Lim walks through how to move from a stuck version of yourself to an improved one. He uses client stories like Jody and Chris, visualization exercises, and a step-by-step process to show why change feels impossible and how to make it real through daily habits and iterative upgrades.
Chapters
You wake up every day feeling like your life is the wrong fit, dreading Mondays and knowing you should be doing something more. Many of us feel a disconnect between who we are today and who we want to become. I want you to imagine this is you, version 1.0, and you want to become this new version, version 2.0 of yourself in the future. So here you're usually stuck in some way, and we'll go through this in a moment. Version two, who is this and how are you going to make this transition? Version 1 often feels like you're treading water, stuck in a cycle of bad habits, low motivation, feeling of being lost in routines, struggling with comparison to others, confusion around what exactly better looks like for you. And it all feels so far away, right? That transition from turning from who you are to who you want to become. You know, you need to change. Why haven't you just think about that for a moment now? I knew I could be more to fulfill my potential. But what is potential? I realized I couldn't really be more vague. It didn't really mean much to me at the time. And I spent a lot of time trying to. Trying to unravel this. There were hundreds of versions I could be. You know, you look at people on social media and you think, I want to be more like them. I wish I had their life, I want their traits. But then they're just, there are thousands of versions of this, and then you end up not doing anything. So I felt stuck. And I wasn't focused on one version. I hadn't articulated what that version wanted to be. So this is me. I'll just tell you a quick story. While in my corporate life, I was part of a group discussion about aspirations. This was really early on. And peers were talking about bigger career goals, doing interesting things, changing jobs, starting businesses, and, you know, I was enjoying the conversation. And a boss of mine, he's a bit of a joker and he's single. He singled me out and said, not you, James. You'll be here in 10 years time. You're a lifer. And at the time, I remember I laughed it off, but it really hurt. And it was more his words, right? Because it was this idea of a perception of me. And it was more painful because it was true. And five years rolled by and I. I hadn't moved and some people had left and started their own thing and I was still there. I really hated feeling like I had no control and often just dreaded going in some days. And this was version one of me. It Was really painful to experience that I was locked in my own version. So version one of me, I was really hesitant. I never deviated from the path if something was in front of me, you know, I'd become really good at following the system, you know, through the education system and then into the workplace. But I didn't realize the downsides of becoming hyper optimized for that. That I really struggled to think for myself. And I was really scared of taking risks. And I also lacked a lot of assertiveness. I didn't follow through on ideas mainly because I was scared about the risks. And I just really didn't like this version of me. Honestly, I just felt trapped in my own skin. I desperately wanted to change, but it just felt insurmountable. So this image, it really felt like you're trying to get to the peak and you want to be that person at the peak, but you can't see a way forward. And that's kind of how I felt. I knew I had a vague feeling about reaching that height. I didn't exactly know, I mean this, I would say felt slightly easier in a sense that at least you know where you're going to go. I wasn't clear about that. Which peak? We can think about version one to start with. What is it you don't like? Version 2? Who is this and how? We'll briefly go over Jody's situation. She felt stuck and in corporate life knew she had more to give. Really risk averse and scared and unclear on who she wanted to be at the time and no idea what steps to take. Really desperate for some exposure to nature and only a photo of a 15 year dream. The regret just worsened over time. This was Jody's transformation, right? So she started at this place and ended up over here as version 2. Now I would say version 2 and it continues to upgrade, right. 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 to version 3. And I mean this would have. This was kind of dream like aspirations, but this is now in the past and you can, you can take a pause here and read what's going on there. Everything she'd achieved. She was really, really trapped at that time. And this is something I see with a lot of clients. This was just one of those. I always like this particular transformation because it was. Brings a lot of warmth to my, you know, to my mind and heart really when I think about this. What part of your version one is holding you back? What frustrates you? What don't you like? Then the question is, who is your version two? And how will you become them? How to become version two. So if you're here and you're ready to do this, we can start working through this. So I'll show you step by step. So the, the next section we're going to go through, it will cover who. Who. This is the definition of your version 2 and how to get there, the process and how to stick to it. Right. Because it's a transition and you will learn this. But first, metamorphosis. I'm going to tell you a bit of a, a metaphor here, quite important. Are you familiar with this caterpillar turning into a butterfly? Have you ever thought about how it happens? So just be clear, you've got these wings here. Now I'm going to take the picture away. So you see this? You've got. Is it a caterpillar with bolt on wings? It doesn't, it definitely doesn't look like this, does it? No, it does not equal a butterfly. They look very, very different. What is going on? Now? I know what you're thinking here. It's something to do with this, right? Okay. But what exactly happens, it is not what you think. Most likely. We'll return back to this after a very, very quick exercise. Okay, so first we need to think about. We want to start defining the version you want to become. What do they look like? We can start to visualize version two. Now this is quite important. Yeah, we need to combine the visualization and then the process to get there. And this is this end point we want to understand. This would be like selecting which mountain range you want to climb. So try and envision, envisage, sorry, envision your version 2. What do they look like? What habits do they have? How does this version feel on a daily basis? Who inspires you? Now this is where it can be useful when you're doing this exercise now you can go specifically to extract certain traits that you really like of people that you look up to. Think and write down these characteristics. What stands out the most? Now don't worry if you would struggle laying this out. I've got some templates and exercises and resources because I find these exercises quite hard when you just got a blank piece of paper. So I've created it where you've got lots of easy boxes to fill in and it's all guided as well. So step by step. So don't worry about that, but have a little think about it. Now here's a little clip of one of the worksheets. Okay, so I've got a quick client reflection here. As an example. Chris incredibly unhappy. Multiple areas, physical and mental health, location. So where he was like the city he was in. Relationships, really dark time. Couldn't see a way out. And deeply unmotivated. We defined version 2, which allowed him to see a future self. It took a while because of the place he was in and how unmotivated he was, but he knew he wanted to change, which is why he reached out. We really worked on unlocking the ability to build Sorry, this.
