127. What if the Hard Part is Who You Are?

The fastest way to stay stuck is to keep searching for a better “how.” If you’ve bought the course, tried the framework, and still feel like you’re in the same place, the problem usually isn’t strategy. It’s identity. 

I’m talking about “who before how”: the idea that your results can’t outgrow the person you believe you are. We dig into how identity drives every decision you make in business and life, from pricing and boundaries to sales conversations and opportunities you’re tempted to turn down. We also unpack the neuroscience of self-belief, why your brain keeps collecting proof for the story you’re already telling, and how that creates self-sabotage like undercharging, over-delivering, and playing small when things start going well. 

We go straight at imposter syndrome too, not as a capability issue, but as a mismatch between external success and internal identity. Then we get practical: choosing the identity first, finding the belief underneath the behaviour, stacking small evidence-building actions, and using systems like SOPs and dashboards as real “CEO proof.” We also talk about being intentional with what you consume and who you spend time with so your environment supports your identity shift. 

If you’re building a business, stepping into entrepreneurship, or ready to raise your prices and protect your time, hit play and try the weekly question that changes everything: what would you do differently if you were already operating from that identity? Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s stuck in “how,” and leave a review with the identity you’re choosing next.

Thanks for listening! 

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Transcript

Welcome And Who Before How

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody. Thank you so much for being here. And today we are talking about who before how. And I'm fairly sure we've all been there before. Like you buy a course, you hire a coach, you download a framework, you're doing all the things, you're taking all the steps that you think you need to take, but you feel like you are still in the same place. So what is actually happening when that is what's going on? And it's not the strategy that you're looking at is great. That's not wrong, but you have to actually make changes in order for that strategy to take hold. So I want to talk to you about what who before how actually means. We talk so much about manifesting and creating the life that we deserve, creating the business that we truly want and building something that means something to us in a way that is sustainable. That's what we're all trying to do. And if you do not become the person that that should be happening for or that that happens naturally for, it's never going to see to be sustainable. So how do we make sure that we can make these shifts? I want you to think about your identity. And that is just how you see yourself. What do you believe that you're capable of? What do you think that you deserve? This is what's determining every decision that you make. Strategy might be the roadmap, but identity is the driver of the car. So when you're thinking of who you are, every decision you make, you subconsciously are making it based on what you think is available to you. And when I say what's available to you, I mean literally, like you feel that you have a certain capacity. And maybe that capacity is for success, maybe that capacity is for happiness, maybe that capacity is even, you know, judgments that you make on your own intelligence, but you are filtering all of your decisions through what you believe about yourself. So this is playing into every single thing and every result that you're trying to create in your life. It's being really kind of sabotaged by who you think you are. If I hand you a map to go to a destination and you don't believe that you belong there, you're going to be looking for, you know, off ramps the whole time. Um, why could why should I turn around instead of continuing to go towards this thing that may or may not really be meant for me or that I don't believe I deserve? And here's the thing: we spend so like an unprecedented amount of hours, not to mention the thousands of dollars that we spend on those courses and strategies and all of the things, but that's not going to work unless you work on your identity. So all of the self-sabotage, all of the undercharging and over-delivering, you're not going to be able to make the leap from where you are to where you want to be unless you believe that you're capable of doing it. And this is not all woo-woo stuff, right? Like this is actual neuroscience. Our brains are wired to act in alignment with who we believe we are. So if I believe that I'm a person that's always overwhelmed and always behind, guess what? I'm always going to feel overwhelmed. I'm always going to believe that I am behind. My brain is going to keep building evidence to support that story. So I've done this myself. I spent years executing from a place that I felt that I was someone that had to prove myself, right? I never believed that I was someone that really belonged and that was grounded in the fact that I could own my success. I can own what I'm good at. So the shift was not in what I did. The shift was in how I saw myself. And once I was able to see, oh, wait a minute. I do know what I'm doing. I can own my success. I can believe in myself without feeling like that makes me conceited or that makes me cocky or that may, you know, oh, she thinks who she is. Get the heck out of here. No, I work hard for what I do. So yeah, I'm gonna own it. So that's what I want you guys to think about today. Because what happens in this who before how framework, we want to know how to do things, right? Doesn't everybody out there want someone to tell them, just show me what to do. Just tell me how to get the result that I am looking for. So what happens is we keep starting over, we buy a new system, we try a new platform, we do adopt a new strategy, and we get the same results because we think the problem is the tool, the tool that's supposed to be how to do it. But the problem is that we have not become the person that can actually sustain what we're building. So what do we do? We outsource our confidence. We wait for the revenue number to kind of give us the feedback that we're waiting for. And it's like, oh, once I hit this level of revenue, then I'm gonna know that I know what I'm doing. Once I have this many clients on my roster, then I'm gonna feel like I really belong in this industry. Well, it doesn't work that way. Confidence doesn't come after the result. The confidence has to come before it. So it is kind of like faking it till you make it. But when you are in a room that you need to be in, are you shrinking yourself to be in there because you don't believe that you belong in there? And that is really sabotaging you. So think about the sales conversations you're having, a speaking opportunity that's presented to you, or maybe like a partnership that's presented to you, but something inside of you pulls back. Something is like, oh, do they really want to work with me? Like, do they even know who I am? Or do they do they understand that I'm not as successful as they think I am? Well, they approached you, so they must see something that they like. Your standards are set by your past. We need your standards to be set by your vision of the future. I want you to make decisions based on who you're becoming, not based on who you've been. I want you to set boundaries and decide what you're going to tolerate, reflecting on the identity that you want to embody, not the identity that you're currently in. Because what happens is that you feel like a fraud when things go well. Imposter syndrome, it's not about capability, it's about a mismatch between the external success and the internal identity. The outside has outpaced the inside. What does that look like? That means that you are achieving things, you're you're outwardly becoming the person who has all of the things that you want. But inside there's this like smaller version of yourself, and you're thinking, maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I'm not really cut out for this. So when we think about creating our destiny, when we think about manifesting the life that we want and bringing things into our reality, we have to become the person that believes that we are deserving of those things. That's the only way they're going to stick. So, how do you actually become that person? It's not that easy, right? Because the gap between where you are now and who you think you want to be is large. That's a big gap. And all of us have all of us have it. So the work is leaning in to close that gap intentionally instead of accidentally. So there are a few different ways that we can try to close this gap. One of the ways works and one of the ways doesn't. I'm going to tell you right now what I just said about once I hit this revenue, once I have this many clients, that does not work. External validation, it's a moving target because once you do hit that number, let's think about it for a second. If you're someone that says, you know what, once I make six figures, I'm going to feel like a successful person. Or once I have five people on my client roster, I'll feel like I've really made it. Okay, what happens when you actually hit that mark? I know what happens. You think, oh, you know what? Maybe I needed to set it at$200,000. Maybe I needed to set it at 10 clients on my roster. Maybe I need to hit$500,000. That will always be a moving target. You're never going to be grounded in that being who you are because you don't believe it's who you are. So I want you to work from option B, which is where you choose the identity first and then act from that place. You get to decide who you're becoming. You get to decide what decisions are going to be made from that version of yourself. You don't need the evidence to be there. You're going to create that evidence when you adopt the identity. So I'll tell you, this is a real strategy. And if you start it right now, today, you can start doing this literally while you're listening to this. You are going to see the results immediately. I want you to think about what identity you do want for yourself. So whether that is I am the greatest partner that I can be, I am the greatest business owner I can be, whatever that identity is, I am really good at sales, I am really good at Pilates. I am really good at anything. Whatever it is that you want to be true about you, that is the place that you need to start acting from. This happens a lot when people kind of leave their corporate job to become an entrepreneur because they don't know how to explain to people. They're so used to working under the construct of corporate that they don't know what to say when they encounter someone new. And that person says, Oh, what do you do for a living? So they're like frozen and they're like, Oh, well, I used to do this, and now I'm kind of trying to figure out where I'm gonna go, blah, blah, blah. I'm a little bit over here, a little bit over there. No, that's not the answer because any decision you're making from that place is going to sound and produce the results that look like exactly what you just said, all over the place. That's not how it works. So, what I want you to do is think about how you can. So, how do you answer that question, right? When someone asks that, how do you answer, oh, I am a coach, I am a business owner, I own my own company, and this is what my company does. I help people move from A to B. I help people who have this problem create this result. When you can embody that as your identity, you are going to start making decisions from that place. So think about um prioritizing your time, right? If you are looking at yourself as someone who just recently left corporate and you're not too sure what to do next, when you're looking at your calendar, it kind of looks like this barren wasteland of where should I put my attention? You don't know where to put your attention because you haven't decided who you are yet. If you make the choice to say, starting today, oh, I'm a business owner and I own a business that helps, I don't know, teachers figure out what to do with their retirement so that they can retire earlier or they can buy property in another state, something, something concrete that you help people do. When you decide right now to embody that identity, guess what? When you look at your calendar, you're gonna know exactly what you have to pay attention to because you need to do the things that allow you to deliver those results. Does this make sense to you? Because this is where so many people get stuck. You have to choose the identity first and then act from that place. I have a client who owns an optician, an optical store. If she walked around when she decided to do that and she was afraid to tell people that this is what she was doing, how much time would be wasted that she could have been building her brand, that she could have been talking to people about what she helps people do. Oh my goodness, I own this amazing company and I help people feel really good and stylish while also helping them see better. I help them kind of extend their personality through this great accessory that I supply for them while also helping them with their vision. She's able to embody that identity and make decisions from that place. So she always knows what to do with her time. She always knows what decision needs to be made next. If she hadn't done that, she would waste a lot of time not knowing what to do. And choosing that identity first is not being toxically positive, right? It's not pretending that you're this person. You are this person. You've already decided. You just have to start acting like that person. So this is not the same thing as faking confidence. You are building that confidence because you're making a deliberate decision about the story that you are operating from. So, what does this look like in practice? This is when you're able to raise your prices because the market didn't have to demand it, but you decided that you are someone that commands that rate for your work. What permission do you need to be the last person that makes that decision? You don't need to check in with anyone else to make that decision. You decide your worth. So, how do you do that easily? You decide to be the person that commands those prices and you start acting like that. Someone that has to set a boundary, right? How do you become the woman who says no to things, not because your calendar is full, but because you decided to protect your time. You have to become the person that values that time and knows that that time is worth protecting, knows that you deserve to protect that time. Until you become that person, you will never set that boundary. So I want to walk you through how to close that identity gap. So I want the first thing you have to do is get really specific about the identity that you want to have. This is not vague affirmations. It's a clear, grounded picture of the version of you who already has what you're building towards. How does that person make decisions? What does she say yes to? What does she no longer tolerate? What does Monday morning feel like for that person? Once you have that, then you can move to the next step and find the belief underneath the behavior. Every single pattern that you want to change, there's a belief underneath there. You can't just decide to stop over-delivering and undercharging. You have to find the belief that says, oh, wait a minute, my value is conditional on how much I do. You don't just decide to charge more. You have to find the belief that says, certain people they don't charge this, they charge that. I'm gonna be this person. The action becomes easier once your belief shifts. You get it? Like the who, what you believe has to happen before the how, the action. Without that shift, every new tactic that you try is just a band-aid and it is not sustainable. After that, let's move to the next step and we're gonna start acting from that new identity in really small, really consistent ways. Because identity is built through evidence. Remember before I said you can't wait for the evidence, you have to build it. Identity is built on the evidence that you give yourself. Every single time you make a decision that's aligned on who you're becoming, even a small decision, you are stacking proof that that person is real. And this is where systems become powerful because they're not just efficiency tools, they're identity tools. A woman who has documented all of her SOPs, has a clear vision, and has a dashboard that's organized, she has structured proof that she's the CEO that she says she is. If that's what you want, you have to believe that you're the CEO. And then the actions to create those SOPs, to create that clear vision, to create the dashboard that's organized, all of that comes more naturally and easier. And I want you to watch what you feed yourself, what you feed your spirit. This is the last step, but it's a super important one. What you consume, who you spend your time with, what conversations you have, all of it, it's either reinforcing your old identity or building the new one. This isn't about cutting people off, it's about being intentional. Who are you choosing to spend your time with? Are they helping you become the person you want to be, or are they detracting from that growth? What are you consuming? Is it bringing you closer to that new identity or pulling you farther away? What conversations are you having? Are they building blocks to that evidence that you are building? Are they building that new identity brick by brick? Or are they keeping you blocked in to the identity that you're trying to break free from? It is all about being intentional with this. And then you can kind of bring that back to the life that you're trying to create, the business that you're trying to create. Right? All of the actions that are necessary for those things to happen are based in the person that is doing the action. How do you become that person? The first thing you have to do is decide who it is. So maybe for today, can that be the one thing that you decide to do today? Decide who that person is. If you haven't really thought about it, like if you've been on this hamster wheel of why aren't things working for me, I keep looking up how to do things and think I'm doing it and getting the same results or getting no results or getting poor results. If that's what's happening for you, I want you to spend some time today and think about who is the person that has those results already? And I don't mean the name of a person, although maybe there is someone that you can like model this after. But what does that person's day look like? What are the decisions that they are making? What are they saying yes to? What are they saying no to? That how it will always be available to you. Google, Chat GPT, Claude, whatever you want, they all have the how. The how is always going to be available. It's available to everyone, right? What Google and Chat and Claude and any other AI that you're using, what they can't give you is the decision to become the person that that how is designed for. That part has to be owned by you. So how do you make sure that you really uphold that ownership? So what would you do differently this week if you were already operating from that identity? Ask yourself that. The first thing you're gonna do, right, is create the identity. What does that person do with their time? How do they dress? What time do they wake up in the morning? Who are they having conversations with? Who are they? How do you become them? Well, you become them by starting with those behaviors. So once you have that identity, I do want you to ask yourself, sit with this this week. What would you be doing differently if you were already operating from that identity? And then, I don't know, crazy idea, go do it. You know? Try it. Try to start making those decisions from who you want to be instead of the results that you're trying to create. And I promise you, those results are going to get easier if you can commit to this process. So, hope this resonated, and I hope you are ready to go out there, create the day that you deserve, create the business you deserve from creating the identity that you know you are meant to have. Okay, I love spending this time with you. Thank you so much for being here with me this week. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you here next week. Have a good one.