How do you identify yourself? What are the words or phrases you use to describe yourself, your desires, needs, ambitions, and character? How you define and view yourself has a massive impact on how you act, think, and feel on a daily basis… regardless of your conscious efforts to prove otherwise.
For example, you may have that one friend who dates the same type of guy who breaks her heart in a million pieces over and over again. She cries to you through every break up saying, “Ugh! This always happens - I trust them and they break my heart, all men are the same! I always do so much for them and they treat me like shit!…”. Subconsciously, your friend chooses the same type of guy time after time because her narrative says that she’s the girl who dates the “bad guys” or the “emotionally disconnected” type of guy, etc. so her brain searches for familiarity whether or not she is aware of it.
Our brains are wired to protect us and when you define yourself a particular way and act the opposite way, your brain recognizes the new-ness and discomfort and slowly pulls you back to “safety”.
Another may be the woman who sees herself as a “well-educated health advocate”, yet when she looked in the mirror, she'd tell herself “I don’t look like the epitome of what a ‘well-educated health advocate’ looks like….I need to get rid of this fat and lean out a little bit.”, and even though she'd done all the research, knows what works for her body, and consciously made efforts to drop those extra 5-10lbs, it didn't work. Why wouldn’t it work if she truly wanted it and worked for it?…. Because I subconsciously identified as someone who doesn’t “look like the epitome of what a ‘well-educated health advocate’ looks like”, and my conscious efforts to prove otherwise were not in tune with my subliminal thoughts. These thoughts sneakily turned into actions to better align myself with my (negative) subconscious identity and sabotaged my best efforts. Once I recognized this core issue, I immediately changed my belief about my self-image and gained a great sense of freedom and peace of mind.
Your thoughts become your beliefs, your beliefs become your actions and life experience. When we identify ourselves in a certain way, we immediately put ourselves in a mindset that can either empower us or enslave us. To break the pattern of negative self-talk, make a conscious effort to be hyper-aware of what you say after the word “I”. “I am..., I can..., I can’t..., I don’t.., I do…,I never..., I always..., etc.” Once you recognize the patterns of thought, begin to change your vocabulary to better reflect how you want to see yourself, and act in alignment with those new observations so that they become real and can run on auto-pilot to form an empowering subconscious identity.