DITCH the 'Motivation' & Just Become Her Instead!

You've set the goal, made the plan and you have got the motivation... for about four days. THEN it's just gone, and once again, you find yourself back to square one, wondering what is wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you.

Motivation is NEVER going to save you, Its not meant to. Motivation is a feeling, and feelings come and go. 

What you actually need, is an IDENTITY SHIFT.

Because here is the thing, you will never consistently act in ways that contradict who you believe you are, never. Your subconscious is always watching, always pulling you back to what it knows. 

Until you change the identity, nothing sticks. Not the habits, not the goals, not the new version of yourself you are desperately trying to become.

This episode changed the way I see everything. I genuinely believe it will do the same for you.

In this episode:

• Why motivation is the most overrated thing in personal development
• What identity actually means, and why most women have never been taught this
• The exact reason you keep self sabotaging even when you really want to change
• How I shifted my own identity, and what that made possible
• The one thing you can do this week to start BECOMING her

She is not out of reach my friend, you just haven't introduced yourself yet.

The Momentum SHIFT:  https://www.nicoleabbott.co/encore-page-1714377471_1_ 

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Find me on Instagram //www.instagram.com/_nicoleabbott/ 

Ready for more? https://www.nicoleabbott.co/

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Transcript

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You are not lazy. You are not unmotivated. You are not broken. You have built things most people only dream about. You've shown up when it was hard. You've figured it out with no roadmap. You've done things that scared you and you did them anyway. So why does it feel like you cannot remember the last time you actually wanted to do any of it? I'll tell you why. It is not a motivation problem, it is an identity problem. Once you understand that, everything changes. This is Next Level with Nick. I'm Nicole Abbott, high performance health and identity coach, surfer and mum of three. This podcast is for the woman who wants to feel amazing, sustain her success, and love the life she's building. We talk all the good stuff, no fluff and no filters. Let's go. Let's talk about motivation because I feel like we've been sold a complete lie about what it actually is. We've been told it's a personality trait, like you either have it or you don't. You either wake up fired up and ready, or you're someone that needs to be dragged out of bed. We've been told successful women are just more motivated, more driven, more disciplined, like it's a gene you either got or you didn't. But that is not what motivation is. Motivation is a signal. That is it. Like a dashboard light in your car. It's information, it's your whole system telling you something is off. When motivation disappears, it's not a personal failing, it's a personal data. The problem is we don't listen to it. We override it. We add more caffeine, more pressure, more guilt. We sign up for another program, another challenge, another quick fix, thinking we can manufacture it back. And it does, it works for a bit until it doesn't. Sound familiar? Here is what nobody is saying out loud. Motivation doesn't go missing randomly. It goes missing when the life you're living stops matching the identity you're growing into, when who you're becoming no longer fits the life you've built. That, my friend, that is not a motivation problem. That is an identity problem. They need completely different solutions. So how do you know? How do you know if this is actually an identity problem and not just a rough patch? There are three signs, and if you recognize yourself in even just one of them, this episode is for you. Sign one, you hit the goal and felt nothing. Or worse, you hit it and felt empty, flat, or hollow. You crossed the finish line, you did the thing, and instead of that full body yes, you felt nothing. I know that feeling. I lived inside it for years. I know how confusing that can feel. I hit income goals in real estate I never thought I would hit in my life. And every time I just moved the goalpost. Don't get me wrong, I was so motivated by it at the start. I will be forever grateful for that. But by the end, it just changed. If you've ever achieved something and thought, is this it? Your identity has already moved past that goal. You outgrew it, but you kept chasing it anyway because nobody told you it was okay to want something different. Sign two, you keep starting and stopping. You were amazing at the launch, the burst of energy, the new plan, the commitment, and then six weeks in, you just stop. You have likely been calling this a discipline problem or a consistency problem, but it's not. When you don't know who you are, you cannot know what you're building towards. When you don't know what you're building toward, your brain has zero reason to keep going when it gets hard. You keep starting because part of you desperately wants to move. You keep stopping because you are moving in a direction that was never really yours. Sign three, you do not recognize yourself outside of your role. Take away the job title, the business, being a mum, a wife, a high achieving woman. Who are you? If that question made you uncomfortable, if you felt blankness or a low-grade panic, if you genuinely cannot answer it, that is not normal. That is a sign your identity has been completely outsourced to external roles and achievements. All of these things are temporary. Businesses sell, kids grow up, roles change. If your whole sense of self is tied to things outside of you, you are one chapter away from an identity crisis. Trust me, I know because I had one and it was the most destabilizing thing I have ever been through. Also the most important. So, what is identity? Let's get super clear on what we're actually talking about because identity gets thrown around a lot. Most of it is just noise. Identity is not your job title, not your income, not your suburb, your followers, your highlight reel. Those are things that you have, not who you are. Identity is the story you tell yourself about yourself. Full stop. The internal narrative, the lens you see yourself through, the beliefs you carry about what you're capable of, what you deserve, what kind of woman you are. I've noticed the thing that stops most women in their tracks when I say that is that most women have never consciously written that story. It was written for them, by their parents, by school, by the industry they built their career in, by the culture that told them what success should look like, what a good woman does, what's realistic, what is too much. And one day, sometimes slowly and sometimes all at once, that story stops fitting. Life looks fine from the outside, but she, that woman, is not fine because she's not living her story, she's living someone else's. You cannot feel magnetic, aligned, or alive in a life that was never designed for you. I want to share something with you. When I sold my business, a business I had poured seven years into, I was absolutely terrified. Not of what came next. I was terrified of not knowing who I was without it. Real estate was my identity. Every sale, every client, every sold sticker, every testimonial, that's how I knew I was enough. When I sold it, I lost all of that. I came back from Sri Lanka, and if you haven't heard episode one, go back and listen because that trip changed everything from me. I came back knowing I did not want to be that woman anymore. I came back knowing that woman had served her purpose and I was done. For the first time, that didn't feel like failure. It felt like the most honest thing I have ever admitted to myself. But here's the thing no one tells you. Knowing you have outgrown something and knowing who you're becoming are two completely different things. That is the work I want to walk you through right now. The identity audit. Three questions. Now I want you to actually do this, not in your head, on paper with a pen and notebook. Give this the space that it deserves. Okay, turn your internal filter off. No, but that's not realistic. No, but what would people think? Just be completely honest. Question one. If money were completely off the table, if you had all of it forever, who would you be? What would your days look like? What would you stop doing? What would you start doing? Who would you spend your time with? This next question exists to separate your identity from your income. Because so many high-achieving women have been chasing financial goals for so long. They genuinely never ask themselves what they actually want beyond the numbers. So, if money was done, taken care of, who are you? Question two. Now I know this may sound like a morbid question, but this had such an impact on me that I'm hoping it does the same for you. If today was your funeral, what would people in that room say about you? I talked about Lynn's funeral in episode one, the moment that cracked everything open for me. Because person after person stood up and talked about who she was, how she made people feel, all of her amazing qualities, but not one person mentioned her career. A few days later I sat there thinking about that day, and I thought, if it were mine today, what would they say about me? In that moment I knew the answer and I did not like it. So I want you to write down what they would say today. Then write down what you would want them to say. The gap between those two things, that is your work. Question three. If your daughter or son came to you with your exact life, your exact level of fulfillment right now, your exact choices, and said, Mum, what should I do? What would you tell them? This one breaks people open every single time. Because we will not accept for our children what we will accept for ourselves. We would never tell them to keep grinding, keep shrinking, keep waiting for permission to want more. We would tell them the truth. So why are we not telling ourselves the truth? What sort of example are we setting? Here is the framework I like to use with my clients, and I like to also use this in my own life. Three selves. Past self, current self, and future self. Past self is who you were. She built everything that you have now. She got you here. She deserves to be honored for that. But she cannot take you where you're going. The beliefs that protected her, the patterns that kept her safe, the identities she built. They were all right for then, but they're not right for now. Current self is who you are right now. Current self is often in transition. She feels both things at once: the pull of who she's becoming and the weight of who she's been. The restlessness, the gap, the sense of being in between chapters. Current self needs compassion, not pressure. She's in the messy middle, and that is necessary. Future self is who you're becoming, and she's already there. She's not a fantasy, she's not your best case scenario, she is a real version of you already there waiting. She's already made the decision, she already knows who she is. Your job is to close the gap. One conscious decision at a time. So, how do you actually do this? How do you move from knowing you have an identity problem to doing something about it? You do these four steps and they build on each other. Step one, name the identity you have outgrown. Simply look in the mirror and say out loud, I am no longer the woman who stays silent to keep the peace. I'm no longer the woman who works herself to the ground to prove her worth. I'm no longer the woman who puts herself last. Name her, acknowledge her, and thank her because she got you here. And then tell her it is safe to rest. Step two, get clear on who you actually want to be. Not what you want to achieve, who you want to be. What are your actual values? Not the ones that sound impressive, the ones that genuinely matter to you. How do you want to feel in your body, your relationships, your work? What kind of woman do you want to wake up as every morning? Start with feelings, not goals. Goals change. The way you want to feel, that is your compass, especially as a woman. Step three, start making decisions from her. This is where it gets real. Every decision, run it through this filter. Would the woman I'm becoming make this choice? Would she take the call that drains her? Would she say yes to things that she doesn't want to do? Would she put herself last again? When the answer is no, make the other choice. You do not wait until you feel like her to start acting like her. You act like her and the feeling follows. This needs to be a constant choice and constant actions until it becomes your new normal. Identity is built in the small daily decisions, not the big moments. Step four, stop waiting for permission to be her. We wait until we feel good in our bodies, until the kids are older, until the business is stable, until we feel ready, until someone tells us we're allowed. But nobody is coming to give you permission. The woman you're becoming does not wait. She decides who she is and she shows up as her today, imperfectly, before she's ready. Stop waiting for permission to be her. Just act as her. If this episode cracked something open, if you recognize yourself in these three signs, or you answered those questions and felt something shift, I want you to know this work does not have to be done alone. The identity work is the most important work you will ever do. It is also the hardest to do inside your own head, which is why I built the momentum shift. 63 Days, a structured, guided identity recalibration. Not just a passive watch the video program. Sure, there are videos and it's a program, but it's the real work. Designed specifically for the woman who knows she's outgrown who she's been and is ready to step into who she's meant to be. 63 days your identity rebuilt from the inside out. If that is calling you, head to NicoleAbbott.co or find the link in the show notes. Your next level move for this week. Make sure you answer all of those identity audit questions. Make the time for this, because that woman is not a fantasy. She's not your best case scenario. She is your next level. And she is already there, just waiting for you to catch up. Don't just listen and move on. Grab a pen, write down your next level move, and actually do it this week. That one thing is your 1% and your 1% compounds. If this resonated or someone in your life needs to hear it, share it. Find me on Instagram at underscore Nicole Abbott or head to NicoleAbbot.co. See you next week.