#646: The Important of Identity pt 1 of 2

Aside from names and certain characteristics which have been changed to protect clients confidentiality, all other details are true.

Today you're going to hear a conversation between a client, myself, a client who wants to understand how they can live their best self more often. 3, 2, 1. And we are live. Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast, you wonderful people. You're here with David Holman. And if you've ever asked the question, am I good enough? Whether it's in your relationships or your performance or your career or in terms of your health, whatever it might be, then you're in the right place. We're not here to hype you up. We're here to give you strategies and techniques to help you transform your life in those areas. Ones that I've shared with the highest performers, from Olympic athletes to business owners. So make sure to hit that subscribe button. Share your favorite episodes and remember, if you change today, today will change your life. Today's quote is self discovery is the beginning of all wisdom. And that's a quote by Aristotle. And that perfectly encapsulates what we're going to talk about today. So let's go for a quick summary. As per usual, at some point in your life, when you're going through a difficult phase or you're going through going through pain and you don't feel like yourself anymore, and it might have lasted a decade or longer, where you're thinking, why don't I feel like I should do it my best? Why am I not as happy as I could be? The issue is most people live a life centered around something. Some people are family centric, health centric, money centric, whatever it might be. They're all external things. What really makes us happy is are we who we really want to be and do we live up to that? And so that's living a value centric life. So what we're going to talk about in this episode is actually finding out what my clients values are. And like most people, are they even in the right order? Most people don't even know what their values are. And then most people have got them when they actually work them out. They've been living with a set of values in the wrong order and then actually got rules that make it very difficult to achieve those values. So we create this paradox that prevents us from being as happy as we could be. So there's gonna be two parts to this. So this episode's gonna be part one. I'm gonna release an episode which will be part two at a later point that sort of completes this Particular session. But I want to start off by this conversation where you're gonna hear us discussing what my client's values are and then actually what has to happen for her to be as happy as she could possibly be. Let's get into it. We're just going to write down 10, and then we're going to put them in the order that you think you've been living them by. So what do you think those values would have been or have been?

For me, it's probably ambition.

Okay.

Curiosity.

Oh, good one.

Growth. Independence.

Yeah.

Connection. Morals.

Okay.

Respect.

Remote.

Acceptance.

Two. More.

Integrity. Empathy.

Okay, so I'd like you to do now just put them in the order that you think you've been living those values by.

As in the top one.

Correct. Yes.

Most relevant or most good question?

Top one. That is just most important to you.

Okay, so most important. But it doesn't necessarily mean that I have a lot of it. I do.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So you're absolutely right. So it's most important. I'd also say don't overthink it.

Okay.

But most important doesn't mean you have it at the level that you want to have it.

No, I would say independence.

Yep.

Growth, Respect, Morals.

Okay.

Integrity, ambition, Empathy.

Okay.

Can't figure out which ones are.

Tough one. Which ones have you not used?

Oh, curiosity.

Curiosity and connection.

Sorry, Connection first and then. Oh, yeah, connection first.

Okay.

And curiosity and then acceptance.

Yeah, let's just check. That's the 10, isn't it? Yeah. Excellent. Okay, the final thing I want to do before we kind of have a look at this in a bit more detail is just let's take the top one or two. It's just to work out what our rules are for achieving that value. So what that basically means is to have independence, to feel independent. What has to happen for you to feel independent, to have that at the level that you really want to have independence, what has to happen.

To have complete control over what I do.

And I get by your laugh that you already know where this is going.

Yes, that's good.

That's fine. That's fine. I have complete control over what I am doing. So. And just out of interest, let's just do the same for growth. And also I want to do the same for respect, actually, because I think that's a big one for you there. You top three. What has to happen for you to have growth at the level that you want to have it.

Always working to be better.

Okay. Always working to be better. Okay. And then respect what has to Happen for you to have respect.

So do you mean for me to have respect or for the other people? For other people to respect me.

It's your word.

Yeah, okay.

What my rules are the context that you mean. Respect. What has to happen for you to get it.

For me to treat myself. Oh, saving. No, just delete that.

Well, what has had to happen.

To treat myself with kindness and for other people to treat me with kindness.

Good, Tim. So the next level, next, next step is we just move these onto the next slide. They're the values that we've had in the order that we've got them in currently is independence, growth, respect, morals, integrity, ambition, empathy, connection, curiosity and acceptance. So I'm just going to remove these rules for the time being. What order do these values have to be in for you to be happier? You have the option of taking some out, adding new ones, changing the order. Don't mind. You can do absolutely anything. What order, what values need to be there for you to be as happy as you could be, as you really want to be. You take as much time as you want with this because it's important.

I think. So I'm thinking of a different word, which is freedom, and it's similar to independence, but I feel like it's more. It includes a lot more.

Okay, good. So is that a straight swap in terms of the word?

Yeah, I think so. I think freedom kind of includes independence. We have much more.

Yeah, good. Okay. Yeah, good. So, yeah, you can change the order, replace them, add a new ones. You can do absolutely.

Freedom is. I think freedom is going to be like always at the top for me.

Yeah.

Growth is something that I know that if I don't have in my life, I always, I would struggle. Growth is really important for me, whether that's personal growth, whether that's in any different area of my life. I feel like I always need to.

Be.

Working towards making things better or improving or having more fulfilling experiences, whatever that might be.

Absolutely every. Everyone needs. Absolutely everyone needs growth and progress. So the only question around that is, and it's again nothing to do with me, totally up to you, is for you, just growth. Should growth be number two for you to be as happy as you could be?

I think so, yeah. Yeah.

So have a look at the others. Think about do I need to change the order? Do I need to replace any, Do I need to add a new ones that would make me happier?

So the respect one is actually quite tricky because I, I didn't know how to define it, but I always. I think it Comes into, like having. Not having control, but knowing what my standards are and how, like, I would not want to be treated or I'd always want people to respect me and I would. I would always want to respect myself. Yeah, but then that can also be. It can make things very restrictive.

So I'll give you an example. So. Yes, very good point. I'll give an example of myself doing this type of exercise. So my list, my former list had a few words in that you might call security words. So certainty was in there for me. Certainty was like number three. I really liked certainty. I still like certainty. It's a good thing. I ask myself the question, does certainty make me happy? For me, Just me. For me, it was, no, it's a good thing. But is it actually blocking my level of happiness? It's good that I know ways to find certainty, but when I'm trying to align the identity of who I want to be at my best, that wasn't it. And so I had to kind of release that level of security in my values and replace it with something else. A little bit like you've done with the first word. Because the difference between independence and freedom is a big difference. What you've done is taken out the security, essentially. And so similarly, with respect and some of the others, you might find similar sorts of things, which are. They are important to me. But does that make me happy? Because that's what we're really asking here. Because the end of the day, what the bullseye is, is what makes me happiest. And you might find that in terms of making some of these changes, they might even feel a bit uncomfortable, but they feel right because that will make me happy rather than actually, these are good things, but maybe they feel like it's a handbrake that I've gone. So that's. They're all. So that very good point you made. So that's all stuff to consider, which is, is this where I want place with some of these things, where these are handbrakes that prevent me from being as happy as I could be? Up to you. Is. And these are your values.

Yeah. I think with the respect thing, it's like. I think it is that kind of safety, like safety net and also element of like having some control over how. How I treat myself, how other people treat me. I don't know how it's. I don't know whether it's linked directly to my happiness as such. I would say connection needs to move up because connection makes me happy.

Good. Okay, where would we put that after growth. Good. Okay. So the other thing I'll say just to bear in mind, because I know when I do this exercise with some people, people sort of go, they'll say things like, make this change. But is that who I am? And it's very. There's a very easy get out for me on this, which is, are you the same person you were 10 years ago? No. So identity is fluid and our actions and decisions that we make all affect our identity, but they all come from a different place, depending what we choose. When actors are doing parts, I'm trying to work out the character, they'll work out what their values are. When you live through a set of values and you change those set of values, the actions you take are different.

Yeah.

It leads into what sort of actions do we want to be taking? So, okay, so we've got freedom, growth, connection. Okay. So we made some adjustments there.

So I think so with ambition, I think ambition is similar to growth to some extent because you always. You're working towards something. Working towards something better, bigger. So maybe I'll take ambition out because I think growth is more. More kind of includes a lot more. I think it's a broader word.

And so. And that's. That's fine. And people might not think that's a big deal doing that, but actually when this is list of values, when we look at how many words we have that are the same, what we're really doing actually in reality is we're putting more pressure on that thing.

Yeah.

And so having less words to do the job means it's still important. We prioritize it. But we don't have. Not everything has to point to that target and just say, that's the only place I get it. Because really then we're kind of crippling the full extent of who we are. So. Yeah. So we'll leave a space there until you sort of think of a different word. You value what you want to put in, but have a look at the rest of them. Have a think what you would like to do.

I think so. I. Look, I've looked at my. Like if I look at this list, I just sound very strict.

I was the same. I promise you I was Exactly. And most a lot of people.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I sound very strict and that I know that like, I put a lot of pressure on myself to like lead a very like moral life. Needs to. I always need to like, you know, not be perfect. But it's trying to. But it takes all the fun out of it.

Yeah. And this is the thing. And so it's at the end of the day when, you know, when I start working with you, get you to fill out that piece of work of what do you really want? I do that because I need to know what the bullseye is for you. Everything you mentioned there, when you really look at it, is to do with a sense of, as you mentioned, is a level of peace and happiness. I. I have an idea of. Okay. When we come to do this piece of work that we're doing now, I wonder if our values actually ladder up to that. And as you're sort of pointing out, maybe they don't. And so therefore, when we think about what the bullseye is. We'll talk about this in a bit more detail in a second. But are we actually even facing the right way? So this is. But this is very common. This is absolutely fine. There's no problem with this. And it's not even, you know, in certain cases where we have different sides of ourselves, different sides might have different values. That's a whole different thing that we could talk about.

But anyway, so, yeah, okay, so freedom, growth, connection. I want peace in there because peace makes me happy.

What would you like to swap? We'll put. I'll put that in the space. But where would you like it?

I would like it after connection.

Good. Okay. Got the top four down for the time being. Okay.

I would just. Shall we just take out morals and integrity?

Yeah.

Who.

Who needs.

Passion? Makes me happy.

Passion. Okay. Put that in there.

Passion. Above. Above. Respect.

Okay.

I would say humor.

I've got peace in there twice, haven't I?

What's the opposite of fear?

Well, life's great mysteries. What's good about Answer that question is actually, there's a lot of answers. I've been asked that question before.

Fear doesn't make me happy, but the opposite of fear makes me happy.

How would you like to feel instead of fear?

Yeah, that's a question. Isn't. Comes back to like security and safety.

Yeah. And so think about it maybe in terms of what does security and safety allow you to do?

To be myself. To be comfortable. Okay.

So feeling comfortable. I know you like comfortable feet.

I like comfortable.

So feeling comfortable could be part of it might be a different. Slightly different thing to security and safety is just actually a peace and feeling comfortable. You might even take it a step further and go, what does being comfortable allow you to do? Or you can stop at the word comfortable and go, oh, that's a. That's a good word. But you might go what does being comfortable allow me to do? And you go down that road, you'll probably find the thing that. Oh, well, it allows me to do that. That's the thing that makes me happy.

Yeah. Well. Yeah, I think the thing is being comfortable allows me to be myself.

Okay.

And that's been able to be authentic is like. Is really important, I think.

Okay, so out of those two words, which one's more important?

But being authentic and comfortable.

Yeah, you could have them both if.

You want to, but I would say being. Yeah, Authentic.

Okay. Put that in there. Okay. So basically we just want to order those there. Well, keep making changes. But that we. We've done.

I would say being authentic goes above respect.

Okay.

And then humor goes above respect. So I've got freedom, growth, connection, peace, passion, authentic humor. Okay. So what makes me hurt? So I've got acceptance in there. And I think I initially had it to. Because it's important for me to be accepting of differences, but also acceptance of myself.

But.

But then that kind of relies on, like, other things or other people.

Yeah. And you've got authenticity in there in terms of whether it's being. Being who you are at the end of the day. But you could have, like you did with freedom. You might have a variation on the word acceptance that actually takes off some of the. The parameters and the.

Yeah, now I need to think of that word.

Okay. This is no rush at all.

Okay.

Saves us a year. This saves us time in the years coming.

Yeah. So I'm happy with the first seven. I just don't know what to do with the last one.

Two.

I don't know what to do with the last ones. I don't know if I like any of those words.

That. We've got.

One.

We got one too many. So we can just. Yeah, we got. Just delete one that you don't want for sure. And two. And then leave the other two is. Maybe I'll swap them. I don't know yet. Which one do you definitely not want?

I don't want acceptance.

Okay. So I think what you'd like to do with empathy and curiosity.

I think I would like to take away respect and swap that with something. Let's stick in kindness for now. Yes, I'm happy with the top eight. Two, Shaman. But the last two, I just need to have to.

Perfectly fine.

I can't think of anything else. I feel like I've lost a list of words. I'm just thinking if there's anything else that's more important than empathy.

So maybe just read Them out loud to yourself, going down. And as you're reading them, you might start to think of you almost. When you. When you use language, words can sort of flow one after another. And as you say them, you might then think the natural thing to say is, oh, it's this.

Let's see. So freedom, growth, connection, peace, passion, authenticity, humor, kindness, empathy, and curiosity. I would like to take out curiosity. Let's take our empathy as well. I'm just thinking, well, what makes me happy? And those things that. These are the things that make me happy.

Oh, okay. Let's leave it at those then. Okay, so let's just leave it at those eight. If there's nothing that really is that feels as if it yet belongs in that group, then let's just keep it at that group. So here's the paradox that most of us get caught into. We look at our two lists. So the values we were living by, and let's just take the top five, the values we were living by. Independence, growth, respect, morals, and integrity. What we think actually would make us happy is freedom, growth, connection, peace, and passion. So they're two different people, and everything we do comes from the values that we live by.

Yeah.

In the conversations you've mentioned before about how other people see us or think or feel about us, a lot of people are centered by one of the following. Some people are family centric, some people are money centric, career centric, friend centric, health centric. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things except for the fact that if your life is centered around one of those things, you're not really in control of it. And you weren't born with those things. And that's not how you. Your internal happiness isn't geared by those things. The people wondered why they don't feel in control of their level of happiness and feeling content. If you're centered around something else, then that is very difficult. The only way in life to ever really feel a sense of control with the app is to be value centric, to have your own list of values. This is a very different person. Now then when we think about trying to hit that bullseye of happiness. Well, if we look at him. Okay, so independence we had at the top. Okay, so what we basically said is that's not the right thing. So that number one target hasn't been the right number one target. And not only that, the rule for our number one target was to have control over what I'm doing. In fact, I think you said everything that I'm doing, so the paradox that most people get in is that the number one target is the wrong thing and their rule to achieve it isn't helpful. So what we're going to do now is now we've shifted the order to something that actually aligns with what would make us happy. And we're going to write rules that actually mean that we can achieve them all of the time. Regularly.

Yeah.

And on the flip side then what we're going to do. When you come to the coursework, you'll have a bit more time to think about all of this. But on the flip side, you can have moving away values and rules. So if I asked you just briefly, we'll go back to what we were doing. An emotion you really wish you weren't experiencing as much as you can do, what would that be?

Would be fear.

Okay, fear. If I asked you what has to happen for you to feel fearful, what would you say?

What has to happen?

Yeah, you need to feel any sort of fear. What has to happen?

Not having control over. Not having control over things. So affect. Yeah, things that affect me or that are in my life if I don't have control over it, that just. Yeah.

No, we look at how difficult that rule for independence was and how simple that rule is for fear. Everyone has a dirt road to happiness and a highway to misery. Everyone does. And so all we're going to do is we're going to flip this round. We're going to create a really difficult rule. So it's very hard for you to experience fear and really simple rules for you to experience the things that you do want. So we'll go back to what we're doing and we'll just go back to this list. All I'd say is, you know, it's worth having all eight written down. The purpose of what we're going to do now, which is just show you how to write some really, really basic, simple rules that make it really easy to live by these values all the time and so therefore be happier more consistently. And if you've got ways of achieving your top values all of the time, you know, when we're talking about who we really are, this is who we really are. Being at our happiest is who we really are. Being who we are. Our very best. And what we're saying is, at my very best, they are the values that I should and do prioritize. Yeah. So all we're going to do. I think we might have done a version of this already, but ways to write good rules. So, for example, what we wrote for respect previously was treat myself with kindness and for other people to do the same. So that's, that's two things that have to happen all the time to get respect. So. And that's what we all do. So what we're gonna, all we're gonna do is we're just gonna frame these things differently. And what we're gonna do is write as. I think we've done a variation of this already, but we're gonna put anytime, Ollie D. So all I want us to do, if you're sort of familiar with this type of thing, is we're going to write down. Might not finish it in this session, but we're going to write down 10 for each. I promise you there's 30 for each. But if you. So as you heard there in that conversation, the values are in complete the wrong order. The values were based more around things like safety and security, if you noticed. And many people have this because over time we're trying to avoid pain, not be so fearful. But by doing that, we're actually moving away from what would make us happy. By making these simple adjustments and then living through a different set of values and remembering those values, we make different decisions. And what we're going to have in the second part, which I'll release very soon, is actually then how to achieve those values all of the time. Because imagine if you achieve your top values, the ones that you really want and have got constant ways of achieving them, then life looks pretty good. So make sure you tune in for that episode that we released very soon. That'll be part two. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, enjoy the rest of your life and I'll speak to you again soon. Just one more thing before you go. So I hope you're enjoying the daily episodes. We put in a lot of work to keep providing content because to create permanent change needs consistency. To get that consistency, we want to make sure we keep providing you value on a daily basis. But to keep up with that pace, could we ask for one very small favorite? If you could take the time to leave a five star rating either on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we'll put a link in the description for you to be able to do. So that really, really helps us out and helps us to keep providing content as frequently as we do. And we'll do one more thing to provide some extra value. If you take a screenshot of your rating or review and send it to self beliefchiefmail.com or or DM us on Instagram, I will provide you with a free coaching session with myself. Okay, so it'd be fantastic if you could leave that five star rating so we can keep providing content. Just simply click on the link in the description. It'll take you 20 seconds and if you want to go one step further, take a screenshot of that rating and review. Send it to self beliefchiefmail.com or DM us on Instagram and and we'll arrange a free coaching session for you. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day and see you on the next episode. Finding a hoodie that lasts through the season can be tough. The American Giant Classic Full Zip hoodie is made to last a lifetime so you can count on it year after year. Every American Giant piece is made in America and designed to last. No exceptions. The result is durable clothing that become part of your life. Snag the hoodie that will bring you comfort for life. The American giant classic full zip. Save 20% off your first order at american giant.com when you use code staple20@ check out.