Your Identity Controls Your Actions

identityYour identity is nothing but a set of beliefs about who you are, and what you’re about. Unfortunately, most people end up with their identity by default and it gets stored up in their subconscious mind and secretly resides there controlling their actions and therefore their lives.


Scenario 1:

You see yourself as a mediocre person. Maybe that was instilled into you from your parents along with being the middle born child that no one ever really payed attention to. That is now your identity, but you don’t even fully realize it. So now you get an opportunity to expand within your company and become a manager/leader. You find yourself shying away and feeling nervous about the opportunity. You decide to interview for the position but you get tongue tied and the whole time there is an awkwardness about you. You don’t get the job and continue in your mediocre role. Your identity is reinforced again. You are mediocre. That’s just who you are.



Scenario 2:

You see yourself as the fat girl. When you were young you were a bit chubby because your genetics weren’t cool with eating nothing but cold cereal, white bread sandwiches, and candy (the diet your mom fed you). You got teased on the playground. Your subconscious mind decides to become at peace with this fact and create a belief that you are ‘the fat girl.’ Later in life you decide it’s time to change. You use all your will-power to engage on a new diet and running routine. You are successful for 2 weeks and lose 5 lbs. However, it starts to get painful to stick to this new lifestyle. You find yourself slipping, having things ‘come up’ and life gets in the way. You fall right back into your old habits. The identity of being ‘the fat girl’ is further reinforced. The cycle repeats.



Scenario 3:

You see yourself as someone who can’t gain muscle. When you started lifting weights in high school gym class you were one of the weaker kids. You never really played sports or did anything too active so your muscles had no previous training. Some of the bigger dudes called you weak and when the coach charted lifting stats you were at the bottom. Your subconscious mind decides it needs to be congruent with what it perceives as reality and creates a belief about yourself: someone with genetics that won’t allow for muscle gain. Later on in life your co-worker convinces you to start lifting weights with him at lunch time. You stick to it, but find yourself always a few steps behind your friend. Your brain pokes you and says “see told you so.” You find yourself trying a little less hard, and skipping more days. You never really make too much progress because of these half-asked actions. “See told you so” your brain says.



Scenario 4:

You are an African American who was raised in the south side of Chicago in a rough part of town; the ghetto. You looked around and saw that every single person you knew never went to college and almost all of them didn’t even graduate high school. You feel a strong pulling to fit in with your peers and find yourself sluffing school and generally not caring. When someone asks you if you plan to go to college you declare “collage ain’t for niggers.” You end up dropping out of high school all the while unhappy with this path that will leave you destined to be broke or end up in jail. But after all, you aren’t fit for school, and pursuits of that kind.

***sadly I encountered this exact scenario….I was the one asking him if he planned to go to college***


Scenario Infinity:

There are an infinite amount of scenarios like these. Your identity is controlling your actions and therefore your life whether you realize it or not. Remaining consistent with our identity is probably the strongest force within our psyche.

So start to evaluate yourself and your ‘auto’ beliefs that have been stored away years ago about who you are and what you’re about. Then it’s time to replace them with something that will enhance the quality of your life rather then inhibit it. Become conscious and design who you want to be, rather than having it happen by default.



Incantations are the solution

Tony Robbins, one of my heros, articulates the principle of incantation perfectly here. Please listen to this as it is very powerful stuff.


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  • http://armilegge.com Armi Legge

    Mantras and self talk are so crucial for a healthy mindset. Many people get so focused on physical gains that they forget the brain.

    How we thing of ourselves matters almost more than our actual fitness. Happiness is the goal, and if we’re not happy-nothing else really matters. I often say things like “you’re a fighter man” when I’m training. It helps so much and the benefits are cumulative.

    The brain is our most powerful organ. All our muscle and fitness should be thought of as service for the brain. We decide we want to do something like get ripped or max out a new record on the deadlift, and our bodies become a tool for our brain.

    Great work Sam:D

    -armi

  • http://bizmum.com Rebecca Cheng

    Nice piece Sam.

    It took me many years to figure that out. Once your mind has defined what you want, you become who you have defined yourself to be. It’s amazing how most people will view what they see as what they are, and have completely forgotten about their very own thoughts creating themselves, thus who they have become.

    After living through many teachers I realized that it’s the intense and constant thoughts that bring the people, the circumstances and the things.

  • Bob Sellers

    Excellent article, Sam.

    I’m 51 now, and have been obese all my adult life. And let me tell you, Will Power is no match for your Self Image. It’s like a kid on a Big Wheel challenging Lance Armstrong to a 20 mile bike race. Sure, Lance may feel bad and let the kid ‘win’ for the first mile…

    10 years or so ago, I started trying to improve by reflecting inwardly instead of always blaming my problems on others or happenstance. (Huh! Blaming others and happenstance is a worthless strategy! Who knew?)

    5 years ago, I discovered Psycho Cybernetics, written in 1960 by Maxwell Maltz. That was huge. Self Image programming, it works. I expect the concepts put out by Robbins are similar.

    Historically, I have never been able to maintain a diet for more than 6 months. 6 months of herculean effort that would make anyone cry for their mama. What I didn’t know was that no level of effort has a hope against the Self Image. Like the man says, “That Terminator is out there, it doesn’t feel pity or remorse. And it absolutely will not stop!” Only the ‘terminator’ is you, unconsciously defeating your own best efforts.

    7 months ago, I started a new diet. No, that’s not right, I started a new permanent weight maintenance regimen that happens to start with negative nutrient balance (I.E. Not enough foot to maintain my current weight.)

    After 6 months (The dreaded 6 month point.) It was still easy. The affirmation I designed, which is:

    “Hunger is an illusion.”
    “Humans don’t need to eat more than once every 24 hours.”
    “If I’ve eaten within the last 24 hours, I am not hungry.”

    The Affirmation worked perfectly. Hunger really IS an illusion, created largely by the mind to support it’s food addicted Self Image. Eliminate the influence of the subconscious on hunger, and you’re left with the base hunger / satiety cycle, which is only a nagging feeling as opposed to the full on mind rending feeling of starvation the subconscious is capable of generating.

    One month ago I discovered Intermittent Fasting through Martin Beckham and yourself, I’m all in. 16 hour fast, 8 hour feeding. Most days I only eat one meal, no problem. I have to TRY to have a cheat day now. It’s like… “Sure, I could order a Pizza, but why? I don’t want one. I’d really rather make Sam’s Egg White and Beans recipe.” (I had that last night with a salad! Good stuff!)

    I’m actually daring to think that I might not only be able to actually reach the first goal of 180 pounds (I’m 6’2″ tall), but be able to extend that by reducing body fat (While maintaining at 180 pounds) to get lean.

    Keep up the good work!

    • http://thesameffect.com/ Sam Lloyd

      This is my favorite comment I’ve ever gotten. Psycho-cybernetics is one of my favorite books. Thanks for sharing this. Seriously awesome.

      • Bob Sellers

        Thank you, Sam. That means a lot.

        I don’t feel like I’m on such an island anymore.

        I spelled Martin’s last name wrong. It’s Berkhan. Sorry, Martin. It was an honest mistake.

        I really feel like I’m traversing an area that science is just not treading. Conventional thinking says that “One pound of fat equals 3500 calories of dietary deficit.” Of course, this includes the water content of that pound of fat in the body (Do the math… A full pound of fat, at 9 calories per gram, is much more.)

        But that’s not what I see. According to my weight tracking program (Libra) my weight lost for the last month was 3.55 pounds per week. And it’s consistent, too. No huge variations. It’s telling me my calorie deficit is 1800 calories PER DAY. This seems insane.

        Since I track my calories like a machine, I know for a fact that my actual calorie intake is. on average, 1200 calories a day.

        That means I burn 3000 calories a day just living. Does that seem right?

        If this data is right, (And I have no reason to believe it’s not) then it means that obese people are heavily advantaged in the area of losing weight. But they cannot. this is evidence of the hypothesis that being overweight is a function of the Self Image, not a failure of will.

        And yet… Where is the research? I don’t see any research on this aspect of weight loss.

        • http://thesameffect.com/ Sam Lloyd

          Bob I have wondered this EXACT same thing. I have a hunch that the self-image is at least one of the factors of weight. I know for sure that when your self image changes you make different evaluations and therefore decisions (make different food choice, etc.) But I think it goes beyond that. I really do. I’d love to explore this further with you.

          • Bob Sellers

            Sam, feel free to e-mail me.

            I expect the subconscious is not just ‘monitoring’ the ‘hunger’ feeling, but intercepting and manipulating it as well.

            As evidence of this, I submit that the cyclic pattern of being more hungry at regular meal times is the subconscious’ doing.

            In fact, I think the effect the subconscious can have on feelings of hunger are profound. The first lesson for obese people should be “The hunger you feel has very little to do with your body’s need for food.”

            • http://thesameffect.com/online-resume/ Sam

              Bob I believe that studies in the placebo effect demonstrate the power of our creative imaginations. Thoughts?

              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfRVCaA5o18

              • Bob Sellers

                I’ve always been fascinated by the placebo effect.

                However, I think the effect might be opposite as assumed. The placebo might not be tricking the mind into healing you, rather, I think the placebo is tricking the mind into not hurting you.

                The implication here is that the underlying condition the placebo is ‘helping’ was being produced or abetted by the mind in the first place.

                One could imagine how the mind could cause ulcers or hypertension. But Cancer? How can the mind cause cancer? Well, I don’t know. Likely, it can’t actually CAUSE the condition, but can set up conditions that allow it to grow, thus giving the effect of remission when it stops doing that.

  • Will Cunningham

    Thanks for posting the scenarios and Tony Robbins on incantations. I have never heard of this before except for hearing of a businessman who used to tell himself things like that in the mirror before going to work. It was even in that movie “Evan Almighty” with Steve Carell where he said “I am happy, successful, powerful, handsome, happy.”

    I really hope there is something to this, because I am stuck in both scenario 1 and 3. I believe I am a mediocre loser who is lazy and doesn’t care about others. And I have gone to the edge of the earth and back to try and change that belief but nothing has worked in 10 years.

    Sam has been a big help and has been patient with all my rantings and I am very thankful for that. I’m going to give this incantation thing a try. I’m just trying to think of some good ones to put on my mirror and all around my desk, along with good ones to say throughout the day.

    Maybe: “depression is for losers” like Tony did, or not only will I be happy but “I AM happy”. “I will get a job and be successful and stop depending on others” “I will gain discipline in all area’s of my life” “I am good looking”, “I am a great person to be around”, etc…

    It’s kind of a shock I am so locked into my negative beliefs, but it is so true. I hope this is a way out, I’ve been in this mental prison of hell for over 15 years and grew to accept it. I was even taught to accept it. I’m smart enough to get out of this thing, I know now this will work. And I’m not going to stop pushing until I see results.

  • Bob Sellers

    A comment on your twitter feed made me think. It was “Losers have goals, winners have systems.”

    This is true! And this is where Psycho-Cybernetics drops the ball a bit in it’s explanation on how the mind works, and why common affirmations like “i will lose weight!” or “I will get a better job!” are really fairly worthless.

    The subconscious mind does not deal with meta-concepts like “I will gain X pounds of muscle in Y months”. It doesn’t understand time on that scale. It’s a DO ENGINE, and it’s DOing things right now.

    Your GOAL may be to lose weight, gain muscle, or score hotter chicks, but you must break that goal down into a system of things for your subconscious to DO on demand when the stimulus for that event occurs.

    In short, you must construct a SYSTEM, then program your subconscious to BELIEVE the system and REACT to causal events with actions that support the system’s ultimate goals.

    These causal events occur all the time. Noon time hits…. A pretty girl is suddenly there… A burger ad is on TV… etc. This goes on all day long. The subconscious mind will instantly respond to these stimuli and DO whatever the most prevalent programming it has that is consistent with your self image.

    If it does the wrong thing… that is, execute an action that is not consistent with your stated long term goal, then you need to respond by modifying the SYSTEM you’ve constructed to ‘de-program’ the errant programming and replace it with something consistent with your long term goal.

    Let’s pick a random example and deal with it. Let’s say you become tongue tied when talking to people you don’t know on the phone. You don’t know why you do it, but you know it makes you look like a doofus and does not project the attitude of confidence you want to project. Simply repeating the affirmation “I am a confident speaker!” is not going to be of must use, because it doesn’t address the CAUSAL EVENT that is triggering the problem, and that is talking to strange people on the phone.

    In this case, the GOAL is that you want to be a confident speaker, but that goal cannot be directly programmed into the subconscious because unrelated programming is short circuiting your ability to act on that goal. Instead, you have to stumble upon a thing to DO while talking on the phone that relieves whatever anxiety is causing the problem, for example: visualize that you and the other person are in the same room talking. Once you come across something that works, you affirm and practice it, like “When I talk to people on the phone, I imagine that I’m in the same room with them.”

    This means you must reactively analyze your interactions and adapt your system over time. If something doesn’t work, you need to focus on the EVENT that triggered the failure and come up with a replacement DO instruction for your subconscious to do when that event occurs in the future.

    • http://thesameffect.com/ Sam Lloyd

      I love it Bob. This is a great explanation. Bob you need to write this up and do a guest post for the blog!

  • Will Cunningham

    Fanfuckingtastic. You should really donate to show your appreciation.

    • http://thesameffect.com/ Sam Lloyd

      Will email me. How’s you development going?

  • Will Cunningham

    It’s not anyone but be. I’ve been to mental places, specialists, 20+ medications, etc. It’s been 30 years. At this point continuing to try makes me an insane fool. I can’t take putting so much hope and failing miserably.

    Good luck everyone. I’m sure most of you have a great chance for success and improvement. I’m a mental reject who is on disability and is terrified of not only leaving the house, but going downstairs to eat around my family. I can’t go on.