EP132: The Version of You That Built This Life Is Not the One Who Leads Next

You did everything right, didn't you?

You worked hard.
You coped with all sorts of sh*t.
You carried people.
You survived things no one even knows about.

On paper? Your life looks solid. Respectable. Successful.

But inside?

It feels… flat AF.

Not unhappy exactly. Just not fully alive either.

And the loving truth is, you’re not actually stuck or failing or any other BS. You’re loyal.

In this episode, I’m going all in on the real reason high-performing women feel disconnected after they’ve “made it”

It’s not a motivation problem.
It’s not gratitude.
It’s not discipline.

It’s identity.

You’re loyal to the woman who built this life….

The over-functioner.
The strong one.
The peacekeeper.
The one who never asks for help.
The one who doesn’t disappoint anyone.

She protected you.
She built your career.
She helped you survive.

But she is NOT the one who leads next.

Inside this episode we explore:

• Why reinvention isn’t about “finding yourself”...it’s about constructing who leads next
• How loyalty to an old identity quietly keeps high-performing women small
• Why confidence is not the cause of action (identity is)
• The identity gap (when your external life outgrows your internal self-concept)
• The grief that comes with expansion (and why that doesn’t mean you’re failing)
• Why waiting to feel ready is the biggest trap
• How micro decisions rebuild your identity faster than motivation ever will

We also talk about:

• The white horse meditation moment that hit me way harder than I expected
• The tension between “Who the f*ck do you think you are?” and “This is exactly who you are.”
• Fear of success and why expansion can feel more dangerous than staying stuck
• Why reinvention without identity construction is cosmetic, and won’t stick

If you’ve been feeling unstable…

Excited and terrified.
Clear and doubtful.
Ready and grieving at the same time.

It’s more than likely that you’re in the identity gap.

And that means growth is already happening.

This episode is your reminder that:

You are allowed to outgrow the woman who kept you safe.
You are allowed to want more.
You are allowed to design your next chapter.

Nobody’s coming to save you.

And that’s powerful as hell.

🔥

If this episode activated something in you and you’re ready to go deeper into identity construction using the EDIT Code™, send me the word EDIT and we’ll talk.

You don’t need more motivation. You just need a new internal code.

👑

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Transcript

Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hello. Hello, and welcome to the reinvention era podcast with me, your queen of reinvention, Sarah Elizabeth. And this week might just might be bit of a loving bitch slap one. I'm not sure, but I promise you, it is intended with maximum Queen love, my friend, I promise. Now, I don't know who needs to hear this today, but I'm gonna say it anyway, because I've been feeling this for days, and if I don't get out, I might explode. The version of you that built this life is not the one who leads next. I'll let that land for a second. I'll say it again, the version of you that built this life is not the one who leads next, and it's been brewing in me. Because I think you need that reminder. I think you need that reminder love, because if you're anything like most of the women who listen to this podcast, you've spent years, decades, even building a life that on paper looks so damn successful, it's respectable, it's sensible. You did all the right things, you worked hard, you showed up, you coped, you carried people, you went through shit that nobody even freaking knows about. And from the outside, it looks like you're doing so well, probably amazing, in fact, but inside, something just feels off. You're not unhappy exactly, but you ain't alive either. And what most women I've seen do at this point is assume that something is wrong with them, because it can't be anyone else or anything else can it? It must be them. They're like, maybe I need more motivation. Maybe I need a new goal. Maybe I just need to be more grateful. But what if the problem is not your motivation? What if the problem is your identity? Because what I see again and again and again and again is that most high performing women are not actually stuck or not actually not moving forward, and what you know they've got, they know their selves, but they're loyal. They're ridiculously loyal to a version of themselves that kept them safe, and that loyalty is the very thing that is now keeping them small. Now we talked about this last week in resigning from some of those old bullshit identities, and this week, I just felt I needed to go a bit deeper on it. And I'm going to tell you a bit of a story, because it kind of highlights this right. So recently, I had one of those moments where your body just knows something before the brain catches up. You know what I mean? That kind of, Oh, I was doing a meditation. Now, if you know me, you'll know I'm quite practical. I like psychology, I like frameworks, I like structure, but I'm increasingly putting myself out of my comfort zone with meditation, because I know how valuable it is and how much it helps my overactive nervous system. So anyhow, in this meditation, I had to imagine a door right, and I had to visualise it as a portal to the next chapter, and the door I saw was bright orange, not beige, not grey, not safe, not sensible. It was bright and fiery and unapologetic orange. It's a hot fire horse thing, isn't it? And around said door. Door framing it was an even brighter orange kind of, kind of half light, half flame, if that makes any sense. And when I walked through this door, thankfully, without setting my hair on fire, there was a horse waiting, told you a fire horse and all that. If you know, you know now, I don't ride horses. I don't even particularly like horses. I don't think I ever ridden one in my life. I don't think, but in this vision, in this meditation, I got on this huge white frickin horse. And the horse like bucked up on its back legs so fucking powerful, it was wild. And I was holding on like my hair was flying everywhere. And then this horse ran, and I mean, fucking ran so fast. And in my head, this was all into the future, right? Isn't visualisation amazing. I fucking love it. I fucking love it. Anyway, in that moment, I realised that I wasn't being carried I was in complete control, complete control. And in that future, I saw two things. I saw myself speaking on a stage, and I saw myself signing books that I'd written, ops, randomly signed books, and I got so fucking emotional, like I was bawling my own eyes out at my own imagination. I know, right? And I think firstly, it was around the significance of the white horse. I think it's like I can save myself. Thank you very much. Don't need anyone coming on white horse to save me. I'll save myself. But also, part of me was thinking, Who the fuck do you think you are? And another part of me was thinking, this is exactly who the fuck you are. And that tension that's where most of us freaking live, don't we, between who we have been and who we're becoming. Because actually, what we're never taught at school in the midst of Pythagoras theorem and the Great Fire of London, you know, all that really useful stuff that really helps us in adulting. What nobody tells us is that reinvention is not about finding yourself, it's actually about constructing who leads next. And we've been kind of sold this idea that we need to rediscover ourselves and and I've fallen for it as well. As if somewhere hidden under the ironing pile and the responsibilities and the trauma and the expectations, somewhere in there, there's a fully formed, confident woman just waiting to be uncovered, you know. But to me, that feels pretty passive and high performing women are not passive. No, we're not. You don't need to find her. She doesn't need to appear. You need to build her construct. Her identity is not something you just stumble across like a hidden treasure in TK Maxx. Identity is an internal code, right? It shapes your behaviour, your standards, your decisions and ultimately those decisions create your reality. Your identity creates your reality mate, which means if your identity stays the same, your life is going to stay the same. You can change your routine, you can change your goals. You can change your morning routine and your gym membership and your journal and your planner. You can change all of it, but if you don't change the.

Sarah Elizabeth  10:00

Internal code, nothing fucking sticks. And that's why reinvention without identity construction is basically cosmetic. It's not sustainable. It looks different. It feels exciting for five minutes, but eventually you drift back. And that's not because you're weak, it's because you're loyal to old you. So let's talk about this loyalty, because this is where goes the team. You've been a bit uncomfortable, and we talked again about this a bit last week, about resigning from our old identities in thinking about what they did for us, because that's where I think most women are loyal to outdated identities, because those identities once protected them, the woman who over functions, the woman who keeps the peace, the woman who's always strong, the woman who doesn't ask for help, the woman who never disappoints anyone. Those identities got you here. They built your career, they built your family. They helped you fucking survive. So when your life starts to feel too small, your brain doesn't think, oh, maybe I need a new identity. It thinks, oh, I need to try harder. So you double down, you work more, you give more, you endure more, you take more shit, and then you burn out. And what breaks my heart in all of this is then you blame yourself. What if the problem isn't your efforts? What if the problem is actually your self concept? Because confidence is not the cause of action here. Confidence is the side effect of identity. When you become the kind of woman who does the thing. You don't need motivation. You don't wake up every day feeling brave. You wake up and act because that's who you are now, that's who you are now you be her first. And this is why waiting to feel ready is the biggest freaking trap. You will not feel ready to become someone you have never been. You be it, to see it. You be her now, act now from her, your brain will catch up. But the problem is, this is where the fear kicks in, because change doesn't just create excitement for what's coming, it also creates like this weird level of grief, like grief for the woman you've been grief For the safety of the familiar, grief for the relationships that might actually shift and suffer, grief for the expectations that might no longer work. And that's where most women stop, not because they can't do it, but because they can, and that's terrifying, right? Because success might mean being seen, it might mean responsibility, it might mean pressure. Expansion means people might see you differently, and that can feel dangerous as fuck, far more dangerous than staying where you are. There's this often used quote by Marianne Williamson that says Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It might not actually be a fear of being good enough. It might be more a fear that you are more than good enough, and that, in itself, leaves meaning the old version of you behind After all she's done for you, and that shit is scary as hell. And I get it. I feel it too. I get it. I understand it. It's so much easier to play safe. But again, I say what I said at the start, the version of you that built this life is not the one who leads next. So if you're feeling a bit unstable right now, if you're going between excitement and fear and doubt and clarity and back again and over and over and over and over, you too are likely in that identity gap, your external life has started to move way ahead of your internal self. Life and your nervous system, your body is trying to stabilise. It's going, hang on, hang on. And that's normal. That's what's supposed to happen. Your brain and your body are doing its freaking jobs. The mistake is interpreting that instability as failure. It's not failure. It's growth. We accept physical growing pains as normal, but simply not identity ones. I want you to imagine that for a minute, right? Imagine you're at an airport, you've checked in, you've gone through security, your suitcase has gone off on the thing. I hope it gets there. You're flying right. That part's not up for debate. Once you're in the airport, you've gone past all that bit you're in, you're flying right. Every single person in that airport is flying right. There's no going back, but your experience of the airport can look completely different to everyone else. Some might be in the bar, in spoons, getting pissed. Some might be shopping, getting some new flip flops, I hope not, because flip flops cause broken arms. Anyway, some might be chasing the kids around. Some might only go in the first class lounge, darling. Everyone started the journey. Now going back, everyone's flying, but the in between, bit in the actual airport is entirely up to you. So on this particular journey to next level, you you can sit in fear, you can waste time, you can stay uncomfortable. You can scroll and compare and panic, or you can upgrade. You can move differently, take up space, decide that this chapter, this journeys, are gonna be fucking first classmates. It'll be totally different. And that's identity you're already on the journey. The question is, how you choose to travel? And this is why I do this work, because ultimately I want women to stop fucking waiting to be chosen, chosen by partners, chosen by bosses, chosen by opportunity, chosen by society, stop waiting to be chosen, and start actually designing who you become, because nobody's coming to give you permission, nobody, and honestly, the women who changed the world are not the ones who waited until they felt ready. They're the ones who fucking decided. So, what does this look like in practice? Well, generally, it doesn't look like a dramatic, overnight transformation. It doesn't it looks like micro decisions, speaking up when you would have before, stayed silent. Say no when you would have said yes, showing up before you feel ready, raising your standards in tiny, small, daily ways. Identity is built for behaviour to being not thought. You don't think your way into a new life. You become it first. And please, if you take nothing else from stay, please, just take this. You are not stuck. There is nothing wrong with you. You are loyal. And loyalty can be beautiful, but it can also become a cage. You are allowed to outgrow the woman who kept you safe. You are allowed to want more. You are allowed to design your next chapter, and you're allowed to do it when the fuck you want. You're not too late, too late, too old or anything else. So this week, I want you to ask yourself one question, Where am I being loyal to an outdated identity? Not in a blow your whole entire life up kind of way, but in the small, everyday moments, start noticing it, because that's where the change begins. And maybe go back to last week's episode and resign from that version of you a honestly, if this

Sarah Elizabeth  19:57

episode hit you, if something inside you fell. Felt uncomfortable or seen or activated, that's your nervous system recognising the truth, even if your brain doesn't want to accept it, you don't need to fix everything today. Just need to take one small step, and truly, if you want support with this work, if you want to go deeper into identity construction and the Edit Code, just drop me the word edit in a message, and I'll happily tell you more about how we can work together. I'd love that. But for now, just please remember this, the version of you that built this life is not the one who leads next. Nobody's coming to save you, and you get to decide who she becomes. Thank you for listening. You've got this. Thank you, as always, for being here. Wasn't that much of a loving bitch slap, actually, in the end, was it? Hope not. Anyway, I will be back in your beaut badass earbuds again next week. Love you loads. Bye.