What Identity Work Actually Is (And Why Most People Get It Wrong) [ep. #250]

23 Sept

Think of this episode as a masterclass on what identity work really means and why it’s the actual missing piece between strategy that absolutely flies or completely flops for you.

Topics covered on Identity Work:

What’s the real definition of identity work, and why do most coaches get it completely wrong?
Why does your identity act like invisible glasses that filter everything you see in your business?
Why do some entrepreneurs see failure, while others see proof using the exact same strategy?
What’s the difference between surface-level identity work and deep subconscious rewiring?
What three practical steps can you take today to start shifting your identity at the core level?

Connect with Rebecca Haydon:

Come say hi on Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Related episodes you may enjoy:

Quote:

"Your subconscious is always loyal to the version of you that survived in the past." - Rebecca Haydon

Transcription:

Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind blowing results you desire in your life and business. I've said it before and I will say it a hundred times again, your business cannot outgrow your mindset, and if you wanna grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious.

So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve. Hello, my loves. Welcome back to the subconscious expert. Oh, it's gonna be a juicy one today. It's gonna be juicy and spicy. If I'm quite honest. I'm feeling a bit Ted talky. You know where I go when I get the passion behind me. Today we are talking.

Identity and it's fucking everywhere right now, isn't it? In the old world of Instagram, every coach and their dog is talking about identity work. Shift your [00:01:00] identity, step into your next identity. Become her now, and yes, a hundred percent. I get why they're talking about it. It's a fricking powerful concept.

So of course people want to teach it, but actually it makes me wince quite a lot, quite a lot when I see it because a lot of the conversations about identity and people talking about identity aren't grounded in any real understanding of how identity works. And you know, that's what I do. I give you the real behind the scenes understanding, right.

Iden the word identity. I truly believe over the last, I, I've really see it come to play in the last like six months. Like people who have just purely been business coaches have been talking, like a lot of people are bringing it into their message, uh, messaging and like I said, rightly so, but it's almost now become.

This kind of like throw around mindset, [00:02:00] fluffy trick that you can do when actually in reality, when we look at it, identity is a, is actually really a precise process. Your subconscious runs moment to moment and. I'm not gonna spend the whole podcast being shady and slating anyone. However, I want you to have more than vague affirmations and stand in a room like you own it, um, or recycled Instagram quotes.

Like I want you to actually understand identity in a way that is tangible. In a way that is practical, in a way that is usable. And you know that that's what you get when you are in my world podcast or actually working with me, right? This is what I'm trained in. This is what I've spent years being qualified in and now qualifying people in through NLP and the subconscious hypnotherapy work, et cetera.[00:03:00]

And actually, when you really understand identity. It allows it to stop being so intangible because it can feel so intangible, right? Like what does that even look like and what does that even mean? Me changing my identity? And it's been that talked about of recent, I've actually hated using the word identity, but no.

I have to, I have to, I have to let you know what it actually means, because actually the shift in your identity becomes the most tangible driver of your business results. I even had a client message me yesterday and she said, Beck, I feel like a new person. I have completely changed, and her words were, and the business cannot help but follow.

Mm, so powerful. So today, uh, you're in for a full masterclass. Okay. Buckle in, get on down because we are gonna have a look at what identity actually is, what they're [00:04:00] actually meaning when they say it, how it really works, and why. It's the actual missing piece that decides whether your business strategy flies for you or flops for you.

Okay? So. Let's get very clear on definitions to start off with, because clarity is power, especially for your subconscious. So identity is the subconscious instruction manual, and it is the manual that your brain is running every single day, every single day, and it is running to decide three things. Thing number one.

What actions feel natural? Number two, what feels safe for me and what feels really fricking unsafe? Unsafe, unsafe? And number three, what feels possible for me versus what [00:05:00] feels impossible for me? That's it. That is literally it. So it's not who you say you are. It's not the affirmation stuck on your bathroom mirror.

It's who your subconscious has the most proof you are right now. So if you look at your business right now and the bulk of your proof is at 10 k months. And you find yourself not being able to move outta that, or you maybe go to 11 and then you sabotage yourself, or you've hit 15 and then you come back down and you are back on 10 K months.

Your subconscious is wired to behave like a 10 K month business owner, no matter how many times you write down, I'm a millionaire baby. I'm a millionaire, right? This is why so many entrepreneurs feel like they absolutely know what to do, but they still can't seem to do it, and it is because the identity underneath has not caught up for [00:06:00] them.

Now, identity. Take a shot. Every time I say that in this podcast episode, identity feels so slippery for most people, right? It is so intangible because it runs so invisibly. You don't wake up in the morning, open your eyes and click your computer screen and be like, ah, yes. Here's my identity for the day.

Click let's go. Right? It is absolutely wired into the background of your. Day to day, and actually without you knowing, just like you've been breathing for this whole of this podcast episode and you haven't been thinking about breathing until I've literally spoke about it, it is quietly enforcing rules of who you believe you are.

And you don't even notice. You don't even notice it until you hit the wall, until you plateau, until you catch yourself [00:07:00] sabotaging again. So like when you set a bigger income goal, maybe. You are currently trying to get 50 K months and suddenly you procrastinate on sending the exact emails that you know would be part of the process to get you there, or you are overthinking your content even though you've posted content for fucking years, or you are tweaking and retweaking your offer instead of actually freaking selling it on the surface.

Just a little bit of sabotage. Just a little bit of sabotage. But subconsciously, you are just acting in alignment with the identity your brain already trusts. Your subconscious is always loyal to the version of you that survived in the past. The version of you who. Knew how to create safety at 5K months or 10 K months, or 20 K months, but we know when we're scaling.

And we are here. We are here for that. Your [00:08:00] business doesn't need her anymore. We love her. We acknowledge her and we know she did so much to get us here. But your business needs the version of you who can hold the future that you're trying to live towards, and that is where that conflict comes in because your vision is pulling you one way and you are like.

God. Yeah. Consciously I want that. I know what it'll give me. I can see the house that I desire on my vision board. I can see the business I desire on my vision board. I want that. It's pulling me. But your subconscious is still protecting in the old way. In the old way. So there's a couple of lenses that I want to show you, which I think will give you more of an understanding.

So the fi, the first thing that I actually want you to look at. Identity wise is I want you to see identity as a filter. This one really, really lands for people a lot. Um, it's how I teach a lot of NLP. So I want you to think of your identity like a pair of [00:09:00] glasses. That your subconscious puts on you, puts on your eyes, puts on your face without you realizing it.

So if you put these glasses on and your glasses are tinted with, um, I'm someone who no one thinks about, like they overlook me, no one's interested in me. Then you would walk into a room and you. Would notice. Well, all you would notice, to be honest, are the people that are not paying attention to you. Now, if your glasses are tinted with, well, I'm someone that people respect, you will walk into the exact same room and you will notice the nods, the smile, the interest.

Now if we look at that, the room was the same, the room. Didn't change, the people didn't change. The [00:10:00] filter changed, and this is why I can see two entrepreneurs running the same strategy, launching the same offer. One calls it an absolute failure. The other calls it proofs. She's growing. Same numbers, different filter, different stories.

Okay. And like I said, this is something that I teach so closely in NLP. The brain deletes and distorts and generalizes information all the time to match the filter, to match the glasses it already believes is true. So your identity filter isn't just coloring how you see business. It's literally shaping the evidence that your brain is allowing in.

Literally that. So what glasses do you currently have on and what are you actually deleting or distorting or generalizing to what is actually happening in your business or in your life? [00:11:00] The second way to look at it is to see it as a rule book. So kind of see your identity as a rule book. So when we look at, um, the invisible rules.

We have a lot of them as humans, right? Imagine like you've got these rules written on your chest, you pop them on your chest and then you pop a coat over. No one knows them, but you play from those rules. So the rule might be, um, I'm allowed to work hard, but I'm not actually allowed to win. Or I can make money, but not too much because people won't like me if I do make too much.

Or I can be consistent, but actually only until it starts working and then I'm gonna stop. Now consciously, of course, you don't choose these rules. They suck, right? But actually they were written by past experiences that you've had, [00:12:00] conditioning, modeling, sometimes even a throwaway comment that people made to you when you were younger.

And once they're in your book, once they're placed on your chest, your subconscious enforces them like the bloody law. Like, like you're trying to do a 60 and a 30. The moment that you're about to cross the line, the moment that you're about to break the rule, the subconscious pulls you back to the 30, right?

That's why launches stall right at the end. I have seen it so many times. That's why you get close to a big month or you hit a big month and then you absolutely sabotage yourself. It dries up and then you don't have another one for four, for four months until you've realized what you've done. It is the rule book being enforced and actually unpacking the subconscious beliefs that sit underneath those rules and rewriting them at the deep structure.

That's the work I do. That's the [00:13:00] work I do. That's when you stop tripping over the same invisible rules again and again and again. So maybe have a look, okay, what rules do I currently have around the identity that's not actually getting me to where I want to be? And then finally, the last one, I'm just giving you three here because I know things will resonate with different people in different ways.

See your identity as a loop. It runs as a loop. So you. Let me see how to explain, right? So you don't act in alignment with reality. You act in alignment with who you believe you are, and those actions create results, and those results confirm the belief again. So if your identity says, I'm the one who hustles for clients.

You hustle, you sign clients. You [00:14:00] tell yourself, see, ah, hustling works. This must be who I am. And the loop keeps spinning. The loop keeps spinning. The identity has literally in that moment, that moment that you keep being in that loop, even though you know hustling is not serving you, is the identity has literally built.

This bias towards that, it will keep recreating it. How many loops have you seen yourself recreate even when you don't want them? Even when it's painful, because fuck, at least it's familiar. Yeah. What we wanna do is break the God loop. Break the loop. So. Now we've got a bit of an understanding more on identity.

Hopefully those analogies will give you more of an understanding. Let me know which one lands the most for you. What I wanna actually look at is. [00:15:00] Where people speak about identity. So there's, there's two camps I'll call them, um, of how people speak about identity. So camp one, we've got like affirmation level, repeat it until you believe it, keep on going.

And then there's a camp two, which is. I like to call the costume level, put on the blazer. Get your red lipstick on. Call yourself a CEO. Fake it till you make it baby. Do the hundred reels. Yeah. Now, yes, both of them work on a behavioral level and they will shift what we call your state and your state. Has an impact on your physiology, which is how you, you know, how you hold yourself, how your your body holds in a room, for example, and for a time both of them can trick you into think you.

It's working. However, neither of them works long [00:16:00] term if you aren't doing the things underneath it. I work both in those camps when I've done the work underneath it. So when we actually look at it, camp two, the costume level, put on the blazer, call yourself a CEO, that's in environment level, which is the kind of lowest level, um, that, that we, we can do subconscious work on.

And then camp one is the kind of. Affirmation level, repeat it until you believe it. Pretty much behavior environment, you pop some sticky notes on on your, on your wall, right?

Yes. They work, like I said, but not long term. Identity isn't about pretending, and that's why if you literally go back five years in the archive of this podcast, holy. Holy F balls has, how have we been doing this for five years? Madness. If you go back in the archive, you will know that I hate, hate the [00:17:00] phrase, hate fake it until you make it.

I, I cannot bear it because identity isn't about pretending. Identity is about rewiring the subconscious system that actually drives your actions, your perceptions, your results, and all of these things can work a hundred percent. That's why people sell it, and you can go to. Uh, potentially like an in-person event and feel really good and feel really changed, and then a week later, where are you back to where you were just before you went.

Because yes, it works and it shifts state, but it doesn't shift at a deeper level, and that's where your day-to-day actions are running from. If someone hasn't studied how the subconscious works or to be honest, trained in NLP, then what they're really teaching is very surface level mindset. And like I said, it might feel good for a week, but it won't hold when you are scaling.

And I just want you to keep that in your mind because a lot of the times you will go to [00:18:00] these events or you will. Read that book or you will, whatever that looks like for you. And then you'll start to believe that there's something wrong with you when actually what? We just need to look a little bit deeper.

You can't shift from from behavior very often anyway. Sometimes you can a hundred percent and there's sometimes that I've done big shifts with my clients from a behavior and an environment level, but a lot of the time it's come into the identity and the beliefs, so. Let's make this practical because you know, you know what you get when you work with me.

Three ways that you can start working on your identity right now. Number one, I want you, and I've already kind of popped this in during the podcast, I want you to spot the filter. So I just want you to start to see today, this week, this month, how you are interpreting situations. What lens are you seeing them through?

Do you [00:19:00] see them through the lens of the capped version of you? Do you see them through the expanded version of you? What filter, what pair of glasses do you have on right now? Second one, I want you to start to challenge your rule book. I mean, it might be nice having a look at what's actually on your rule book.

So when you catch yourself saying like, oh, like I never, or, oh God, I always leave things to last minute. I want you to ask according to who, where has this come from? Where have I learned this? What's allowing this to feel safe right now? That's the old identity, right? The rules. So just actually knowing what the rules are is your first step, which is stop spot in the filter, but then actually challenging them.

Okay, maybe that's how I've done it in the past. How could it look [00:20:00] differently moving forwards now, and we know the brain is neuroplastic, you can change beliefs, you can change ways of doing things by God. I've changed my whole life, so. It can be changed. Challenge your rule book. And then lastly, I want you to interrupt the loop.

Interrupt the loop. So choose, um, choose to see or to understand where the loops are happening. And that again, will come from the rule book that we've just had a look at. And I want you to catch yourself when you are in that loop. Mm, okay. I'm in the loop, right? What's keeping me safe by being in this loop?

What do I want to actually be doing instead? Who? Who would I be if I was doing that? Okay, so you've got a couple of steps. If you wanna go deeper on this, I would definitely recommend either jumping into the membership or one-to-one, [00:21:00] and. It really isn't a buzzword. It isn't fluffy. It truly, truly identity work truly is the most tangible driver of your business results.

Because like we've discussed on this, on this episode, like it's the filter that shaping how you see the world. It's your literal rule rule book. I dunno why I can't say that word. Rule book. Deciding what you are allowed to have, it's the loop that keeps proving itself to be true. Okay, so I almost want you to start working with identity, not just putting on a fricking blazer, but actually looking subconsciously underneath.

You'll stop adding more strategy in and you'll actually just start being, that's why it feels so untangible. But speak to any one of my clients. Listen to any one of my success stories on my podcast. You will see [00:22:00] that it was the identity work. It was the way that they viewed themself, what they believed, and how they believed it, that truly changed their business.

I hope this is cleared. I hope it has cleared it up, and I hope you can go forward now and when people are talking about identity work, you have an understanding of truly what it is. Um, I cannot wait to support you further in this. Let me know if you do want help, and I will see you in the next episode. I love to see you plugging in and listening to the podcast every week.

So whilst you're here, I would love for you to spend a moment sharing your favorite episode, reviewing the podcast, and of course, that Juicy five Star rating. These little acts of kindness really help the podcast reach more incredible powerhouses just like you. Now, if we're not connected on Instagram, add me at underscore Rebecca Haydon underscore.

And for the full show notes and more resources, head over [00:23:00] to Rebecca Haydon dot com. I'll see you there.

More about The Subconscious Expert:

Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!

Rebecca Haydon