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Identity Shifting: How to Reinvent Yourself in 3-6 Months (in 2025) | Clark Kegley | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Identity Shifting: How to Reinvent Yourself in 3-6 Months (in 2025)
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One of the most powerful ways you can
reinvent yourself in three to six months
is through identity shifting. And that's
what we're talking about today. I'll
give you three practical steps. We'll
look at how you actually do this. So,
what exactly is identity shifting? Let
me explain it with an urban legend.
There's an urban legend of a goldfish
that it can only grow to the size of its
bowl. But then when you take that
goldfish and you put it in a large pond,
gets much bigger, eventually growing
into those expensive koiish you see in
Bond villain movies. We are just like
that fish and the bowl is our identity.
You can also call this your self-image.
How you see yourself. This is the
deepest layer of who you are. You have
three layers of change that you can
focus on. Most people start with the
third layer. This is actions. You want
to get fit, you go running. You want to
build a business, you post content. You
want to get in a relationship, you start
dating. One layer deeper are the stories
you tell yourself. So if you tell
yourself, ah, business is too
competitive, you know, I just can't get
ahead. Well, then it becomes a feedback
loop. It blocks the actions. All of that
is getting at the identity. James Clear
has a great book on this, Atomic Habits.
He says that the goal is not to go on a
run. It's to become a runner. That's an
identity goal. The goal is not to make a
million dollars. It's to become someone
who's financially free. The goal is not
to just go on dates and, you know, waste
time. It's to hopefully find someone you
vibe with that matches your lifestyle.
And here's the problem. Most people want
to change by going from the outside in.
But the faster way to change is to go
from the inside out. And when you change
your self-image, how you see yourself,
that changes your core stories of what
you can and can't achieve. And once
those change, of course, you're going to
take new actions because you're
basically a different person. You ever
seen someone do something you thought
was impossible and it totally rocks your
worldview of what is? This is
controlling the amount of money you make
or don't. This is controlling the type
of person you attract or don't. And this
is controlling your future you or if
you're held back in the past like we
spoke about. Now I want to give you
three steps to do this. But first I want
to tell you a brief story to really make
this land of how these identities hold
you back and are keeping you stuck. So
back in grade school I was a kid and we
were learning multiplication tables. I'm
sure you did something similar where
your teacher gets 12 of you up in the
black on the blackboard and she says,
"Okay, you're doing the ones. 1 * 1 is
1. 1 * all the way up to 12. You're
doing the fives. 5 * 6 is 30. All the
way up to 12." Well, I got the 11s. So,
I'm up there sweating bullets in front
of the whole class trying to do mental
gymnastics to solve these damn 11s. I
didn't know the trick that it's 11, 22,
33, 44. I am the last one up there and
everyone starts laughing and I'm
humiliated. I carried that belief I'm
bad with math around through high
school, through college. It held me back
from classes cuz anytime there was math,
my identity was like, buddy, you don't
do math. Remember the 11s. And so when I
got into business post college for
myself, a funny thing happened. that
belief I'm bad at math. All of a sudden,
when the numbers meant something to me
and it was my business, I realized I
love math because numbers are just data.
And if we cut this, then we gain this
and oh, what if we move things around? I
realized that that identity I was bad at
math was just a story I had been
carrying around that wasn't true. And
so, the reason I'm telling you this is
because I call those identity anchors.
things that strap to you, you carry
around your whole life that are like
literal weight holding you back and
keeping you stuck. The gap between who
you are and who you could be is filled
with the stories you tell yourself. So,
the very first step you do to shift your
identity is ask yourself, what are the
three to five core stories I've been
telling myself keeping me in the small
bowl? Now, you're like, okay, well, what
are my stories? After working with
thousands of people, I noticed four
camps that a lot of these stories fall
into. So, I'll just give them to you
here. Take these, journal on them, and I
bet your core stories are going to be in
one of these four groups. I'm too old or
too young. I'll fail. And everyone will
insert the word. I'm not ready yet. I'm
not the kind of person who fill in the
blank. It's too late. It's too scary.
It's the wrong time. Or small bowl
syndrome. The most dangerous story isn't
the one that's completely false. It's
the one that's just true enough to where
you believe it. Hey, if you're liking
this before the next point, make sure
you're on our refusing to settle
newsletter down below. I send it every
Saturday morning directly to you with
ideas that'll change your life. But
knowing what your core stories are
aren't enough because people identify
them and they get caught in self-healing
hell I call it where their whole life
gets consumed with why they can't and
they have to find the root and oh I
can't move forward until I find this
thing. So the next step is as important
that I recommend doing as soon as
possible. In the same way people have
blueprints before they build a house.
You have to know a rough idea of who you
want to become. What would make it a win
for you? And so what I like to recommend
here is a very simple exercise, and
there's so many different ones, but this
one, if you do it, will at least get you
started. You grab a journal, you set a
timer for 30 minutes, and you write out
your ideal week. This doesn't have to be
5 years from now, 10 years from now.
That can be really far away. But as if
right now, what would your ideal week
look like? Who are you surrounded by?
Who are you with? How do you carry
yourself? How are you structuring your
time? What do others say about you? What
do you do for work? Do you have any
hobbies? You want a bonus question? This
is one that I asked and without it, I
wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to
tour all around the world in one of my
favorite bands playing sold out shows. I
wouldn't have started this YouTube
channel. the question, "What do you
really want, but you're too scared to
ask for it?" Go after what you really
want. Find your real motivation for it.
And guess what? Your motivation changes
as you get closer to it. Like, it's
totally fine for you to say, "I want to
get in the best shape of my life so I
increase my uh dating life and I look
hot." That's totally better motivation
than to say, I want to lower my
cholesterol levels and, you know, have a
resting heart rate of it's totally fine
if you want to make a bunch of money so
that you escape your current situation
or so that you can buy the car you
always wanted to or live in the house
that you've been dreaming of. But it's a
natural process to work your way through
those base level wants. The reason I'm
saying this is because find your
authentic drive. Dig for it. Not what
sounds good on paper. Not if somebody
reads it what they're going to think.
Don't censor yourself. Write out what
you really want. All right. So, now that
you've identified your core stories,
you've set up the 2.0 version of you
through your ideal week or exercises
like that, you're ready to install it
into your brain. You need the third
step. Now, I say install because your
brain is like a supercomput. It
processes over 11 million bits of
information every single second, but
you're only conscious of about 40. Every
day you have between 60 and 70,000
thoughts. He's law states that your
neurons that fire together wire
together. You might have had the
experience of stubbing your toe and
boom, you fire off a four-letter word.
These associations are wiring your
brain. In fact, here's a video right now
of neurons connecting. They're like
little spiderw webs that when you're
learning start connecting together and
then that connection fires off faster
and faster the more you do that. That's
a badass video, isn't it? Super cool.
All of this is happening right now
whether you know it or not. Your whole
life you've trained yourself to fire and
wire a certain way for your old
identity. So if you want to install a
new one or what you just created or
break one, you need to rewire your mind.
But there's one thing that helps you
fire and wire and break these
connections like 10 times faster. You
want to know what it is? How can you
learn by doing? I've said this before,
but I thousand% believe it for you.
Every 1 hour of doing beats 10 hours of
planning, prepping, and researching. Who
learns more? The person who spends two
hours reading a book on surfing or the
person who gets in the ocean, falls off
the board, gets back up, learns by
doing. Now remember our two things
before this. The identity anchors. Well,
how can you do something about them once
you've identified them? You want to be
more charismatic? Start talking to every
single person you see throughout the
day. You want to be better articulating
yourself on camera? Turn it on and talk
to it for 15 minutes a day. You want to
be more disciplined, commit to a
challenge like 75 hard or one that you
come up with and make up for yourself.
You want to find your purpose, come up
with a list of 50 things you could try
and go down the list checking them off.
The key here is understanding that this
rewiring of your whole brain and
programming doesn't happen
automatically. And yeah, it can happen
through learning and consuming, but
it'll happen 10 times faster through
doing and testing. Are these stories
really true? Let me do something about
it. and testing. Do I really want this?
Let me make this happen. That is
identity shifting. Hope there was a few
things in there we haven't spoken about
in other videos. Some fresh ideas for
you. And if you want to get more done in
one week than most people do in an
entire year, I'll link up right here a
perfect follow-up. Over a million people
have seen this video and thought it was
useful. So, I think it's a good
follow-up if you're looking to get more
done. I'll see you there. Remember to do
hard things, bet on yourself, and make
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