Who Are You Becoming?

Let the person you want to be help you choose what to practice today.

You don't have to keep being who you've been. You get to decide who you are becoming.

When I ask people what they're capable of, they usually look backward. They tell me what they've done, what they've never done, and what didn't work before. They use their past to explain the limits of their future.

But your past cannot tell you what you're capable of. Your capacity to grow is yet to be seen.

Think about learning to walk. If you had decided you couldn't walk because you'd never done it before, you would never have tried. You had to practice. You had to fall down. That was how you learned.

Yet as adults, we say, “I've never done that before,” as if it's a reason not to begin. Of course you haven't. That's why you're going to learn.

Ask who you are becoming

The question “Who am I?” can make your identity sound finished. You look at your history and describe a person who already exists, as if there isn't anything left to create.

“Who am I becoming?” opens up a completely different conversation. It directs your mind toward your future and reminds you that you get to create it.

You can see this in something as ordinary as asking someone how they are. One person tells you they're great because they're about to go on vacation or graduate. Another tells you yesterday was terrible. Both are having an experience right now, but one is thinking about the future and the other is thinking about the past.

Your thoughts create your feelings. Your imagination is a collection of thoughts. When you imagine a future you love and believe in it, you generate the emotions of that future now. When you rehearse your regrets, you generate the emotions of your past now.

You get to choose where you're looking.

Give yourself permission to want your future

Before you can live from your future, you have to decide what you want it to be. So many people haven't answered that question. They assume their future will be determined by whatever they've already been able to do.

I want you to imagine something different. Where would you live? What work would you do? Who would you spend time with? What would you stop doing? Who would you be?

You don't need anyone's permission to want that life. You can want what you want. If you like your reason and it serves you, you don't have to justify it.

I have often described my mission as being an example of what is possible. As I imagine bigger and more extraordinary futures, I become different in my present. The future I imagine changes how I think, how I feel, and how I show up today.

Complete the sentence: “I am becoming someone who…” You can put whatever you want there. A nicer person. A more successful person. A more organized person. Someone who helps other people make millions of dollars.

Deciding on that future starts changing you now.

Write the script for the new you

Imagine you're an actor learning a part. You have chosen the person you're going to play. Maybe it's a millionaire life coach. Maybe it's someone married to the person of your dreams.

Now you need a script. What does that person think? What do they feel? What do they do? Write it in detail.

Then memorize it. Practice it. And don't just learn the lines and repeat them without meaning. Feel them. Think of a method actor who stays in character while filming. They aren't simply saying words. They're becoming the person.

That's the work I want you to do with your future self. Learn the thoughts, generate the feelings, and take the actions of the person you are becoming.

There will be tension between the person you believe you are, based on your past, and the person you imagine in your future. Those are two mental constructs you're holding at once. That tension is part of changing. You can program your brain with your possible future instead of continuing to program it with who you've been.

Act as the person who already has it

Here's an important distinction: you aren't taking actions to become that person someday. You're taking the actions of being that person now.

I understood this when I thought about people who don't desire alcohol. They aren't constantly thinking about quitting. They aren't negotiating how much they'll drink or planning what they'll tell everyone. Alcohol isn't occupying their mind.

If I wanted to be someone who didn't desire alcohol, I had to think about what that person thought about. I had to stop organizing my thinking around quitting and start being someone who didn't care about alcohol.

That is very different from continually rehearsing the identity of someone who is trying to stop drinking.

Think, feel, and act as the person who already has the result you want. Your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings drive your actions, and your actions create your results.

Your future self can be authentic

People sometimes tell me this feels inauthentic. But why would repeating your past be the definition of authenticity?

A thought can come naturally because you've practiced it for years. That doesn't make it the truth of who you are. It makes it easy.

Being honest about who you want to be is authentic. Living the life you want, without apology, is authentic. You don't have to preserve old patterns just because they're familiar.

As soon as you imagine a possibility, you have created an idea that didn't exist before. Now you can rehearse it, feel it, and live from it. That possibility becomes your direction. It changes how you interpret what happens and how you make decisions.

You can put what you want in the result line of your Model. It might as well be extraordinary.

Who are you becoming? Make sure you've decided.