4 Ways To Expand Your Identity

Ep. 133 // 4 Ways To Expand your Identity

[00:00:00] jamie–she-her-_1_02-06-2026_141917: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I have a topic that is gonna be very expansive today. If you apply it, we’re gonna be talking about. Uh, sorry if you heard a little moan in the background. That is my little dog, Millie. She’s being very needy today and for some reason must be on my lap while recording.

[00:00:26] So if you hear a little, you know, snoring or moaning, she is a very cozy right now and likes to express it. Okay, so back to what I was talking about, expansion. We’re gonna talk, talk about expanding your identity on purpose. Now, what is identity? You’ve heard about this a lot. I’m sure if you’ve been in the personal development world for any amount of time or if you’ve studied some manifestation.

[00:00:55] You’ve probably heard a lot about identity and why your identity matters. But let’s break down what identity actually is before I dive into this topic. So your identity is the way that you. See yourself. It’s how you identify. It’s your self-concept. It’s the thoughts that you think about yourself. It’s the way you feel about yourself.

[00:01:24] It is what is running in the background mentally. What kind of self-talk is running. It’s the way that you think you are now. Key word, think. Not know you are, but think you are because the thing about identity is it is a combination of thoughts and beliefs about yourself. Oftentimes you’ve had them for a very long time when it comes to identity, right?

[00:01:54] These I am statements, this is who I am, this is how I am, this is what I do, this is how I’ve always been. Right? So much of that was formed when you were a child. Again, I say this a lot about the core beliefs that we hold, but a lot of them have been kind of. I don’t wanna say solidified, but solidified in your brain.

[00:02:18] They aren’t solid, but your brain thinks that it’s who you are. Your brain thinks it’s solid. So we’ll say solidified before you were even eight years old, which is before your conscious mind was even formed fully. Right. And our conscious mind is the part of our mind that decides on purpose what we wanna think.

[00:02:35] So a lot of our identity we didn’t even pick. It’s kind of like. Maybe growing up someone always told us we were messy. Someone always told us, oh, you’re not good at math. Or let’s say you have failed a math test in third grade, you decided, I am not good at math. I am not good with numbers. I’m not smart.

[00:02:55] Right? There’s so many things that, uh, we think about ourselves on a day-to-day basis, and so much of it we believe is just solid. We believe it’s who we are. But the good news is it’s not because these are beliefs, these are thoughts. So the beautiful thing is we can start becoming aware of who we’ve been telling ourselves we are, and we can question it.

[00:03:24] We can decide on purpose. Now that we do have that adult brain, we do have a fully developed prefrontal cortex. We can decide if we wanna hold onto that. Do I wanna keep thinking I’m bad at that? Do I wanna keep thinking I’m not smart? Do I wanna keep thinking I’m clumsy? Right? And for some of ’em we’re like, well, it’s not that big of a deal.

[00:03:46] It’s not worth changing. Who cares? I don’t mind holding onto it, but for some of these things that we tell ourselves and some of the identities that we hold, it truly limits us for what we know we’re meant to do, who we know we’re meant to be, and what we know we are meant to create. In the world. And so a big part of manifesting your soul’s desires and stepping into the highest version of yourself and that version of you, you know, you’re meant to be.

[00:04:18] A big part of it is gonna be questioning the identities you’ve been holding and being willing to question them and to change them, right? To upgrade your identity, to expand it. And that’s what I wanna talk about on this episode is the how do we actually do it? Because you know, you’ve heard a lot about identity.

[00:04:40] I know if you’re listening, I’m sure you’ve heard that word thrown around a lot. But I literally wanna break down how you can do it. There’s four. Main areas of your life that you can make shifts around and you can start stepping into new practices around that will up level your identity and really help you shed any old identities that are no longer serving you, that are no longer aligned with who you know you are, who you know you’re meant to be, and what you know you’re meant to create.

[00:05:14] So let’s. Dive into it. What are these four different things that shape. Identity. So I’m gonna run through it really quick and then we’re gonna break it down and I’ll give you guys some examples. So the four things that shape our identity are gonna be, like I said, our words, our belief systems, what we tell ourselves.

[00:05:36] We are the I am statements, right? Um, anything, what one of my favorite, uh, sayings is what comes after I am determines your destiny. So what you say you are, you will be simply because repetition creates your reality. So if you keep saying, I’m not good at business, I’m not good at selling, I’m not good at being on camera, I hate being on camera, all of these things, or, I’m not comfortable doing that, I’m not willing to, I’m not someone who takes action.

[00:06:12] I’m a procrastinator. The more you say it, the more it’s just gonna become true because your subconscious says Yes, that’s who we are, and then that’s who you act as. So your words shape your identity in a huge way, and we’re gonna break that down in a bit. The second one is how you actually carry yourself physically.

[00:06:31] Right. So this is everything from your posture to your energy, to your presence, your confidence, to the clothing that you wear, right? How do you actually carry yourself, because that is how your body feels, your identity, right? Think about it like this, when you are in a nice. You know, uh, what we’ll say a, a, a posture that’s not slumped over, or you’re nice, you’re sitting up nicely, you feel more confident, right?

[00:07:06] This is why in meditation, if you’ve ever studied meditation posture is huge. It’s like a big part of the foundations is getting your posture right. Right. That’s why you see a lot of people sitting in the lotus position, they always say, sit up straight. Sit up with your back up posture is everything because you literally connect that posture to a meditative state.

[00:07:30] You’re not gonna get in that state in a slumped over position. So posture is huge and you can use posture and how you carry yourself around your identity. And we’ll break that down too. But that’s the second piece, is how you carry yourself. The third thing that shapes your identity is gonna be what you’re surrounded by.

[00:07:51] So it’s gonna be your environment. It’s where you actually are, the people that you place yourself around, the things that you place yourself around, what you consume, what you normalize, um, what your environment is like. Very, very much helps to let me say that again.

[00:08:19] Very much shapes your identity so. That’s the third one. The fourth one is gonna be where you actually take your attention, what you focus on. You might’ve heard the saying, what you focus on grows. And that is very true. So the question is, do you focus on the good? Do you focus on celebrations? Do you focus on the wins?

[00:08:42] Do you focus on what’s right? Do you focus on solutions or do you focus on fear? Problems. Um, what’s not right? What’s, uh, you know, what, what the fears are, what you would need to worry about, what could go wrong? All of this impacts how you identify yourself and the identif, the identity that you hold. And I wanted to break this down because I actually taught this in, um, my mastermind, the Becoming a Millionaire Mastermind, which is a mastermind that I’m co-hosting with Julia Carlson.

[00:09:20] And the intention of that Mastermind is to help the women. In there, step into a millionaire identity. So they may, may or may not have a million dollars physically, but their work is to step into the millionaire identity and then the results follow the identity, right? So often we get it wrong and we think.

[00:09:45] We need to have the results. I need the million dollars in order to believe that I’m a millionaire or to, in order to carry myself as a millionaire, or to think of myself as being able to have a million dollars. No. The opposite is the way that we manifest. We step into the identity first and then the results follow.

[00:10:03] And I can tell you, I have done this for every income level I have stepped into. Starting at my first a hundred K. This was a huge practice for me, was doing this identity work and doing it with these four different things that shaped the identity. I literally spent a year practicing stepping into the new identity before I had it.

[00:10:25] I did not have a hundred thousand dollars business. In fact, when I first started this work, I was barely making anything. I don’t even think I was making $500 a a month in business, right? And to get up to like eight k or you know, a little over eight K to make it a six figure business. That was a stretch, but I just decided I’m going to bring my thoughts and my consciousness and my identity there.

[00:10:48] First, I’m going to connect with that future version of me who is a hundred thousand dollars. Coach and a hundred thousand dollars CEO and has a hundred thousand dollars business and I’m gonna become her. Right. So I practice these things and I’m gonna tell you how I kinda walk through it. I also did it again at the million dollar level.

[00:11:08] I became a millionaire before I was a millionaire. That’s how I became a millionaire. And I’ve done it for other things as well. It’s not just money, right? And monetary success or you know, being a CEO or something around business. I’m referring to that because that’s what this podcast is around, but you can really do it for anything.

[00:11:27] I’ve also done it for more joy and balance in my life, like wanting to be a more joyful, balanced version of me. I’ve done it around fitness and strength and wanting to be strong and healthy and actually being an athlete, right? Like growing up I was overweight. I. Basically hated every sport there was. I hated running, like if you, I had pe.

[00:11:51] PE class was my worst class ever. I would try to cheat my way out of it. I hated running the mile, all that stuff I would not have identified as an athlete in any way, shape, or form. The only sport that I liked was swimming because I was in the water and it just, I don’t know. I’m a mermaid, right? But I did not see myself as an athlete.

[00:12:09] Guess what? I use these four different things to become an athlete, to become someone who’s strong, healthy fit, who really cares about my health. I’m someone now who consistently strength trains, consistently takes good care of my body, consistently, moves consistently, naturally, eats healthy because it’s what I want.

[00:12:32] I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t smoke. I don’t do any drugs. I have stepped into the identity of radiantly healthy. By using these four practices, right? So you can do this with a number of things. So before I kind of dive into the intricacies of each of these four steps that shape the identity or these four different things that shape the identity, I wanna encourage you to pinpoint an area of your life where you’re ready to expand.

[00:13:03] Where are you ready to expand? What do you want to let go of? What’s an old limiting identity that you sense is just creating unnecessary struggle for you anymore? And the reason it feels like such a maybe struggle, or it feels like old, is just because you’ve been fighting it for many years and you’ve been maybe trying to expand your identity, but doing it through willpower or doing it in a way that isn’t long term, that isn’t sustainable, right?

[00:13:32] Or maybe you’re thinking, gosh, there’s not an I, this isn’t an identity that I struggle with, but. I wanna become a seven figure CEO as well, or I wanna fig become an eight figure CEO, or I want to become, you know, someone who sees myself as radiantly, healthy and naturally fit and strong too, right?

[00:13:51] Whatever it is you get to pick, but I want you to identify it so that as I’m walking through these things, you can think about it for yourself and really. Implement these strategies because my friend, they will work. They do work. And what’s funny is like so much of our identity and like the, the identities that we’ve taken on, and I know you’ve taken on new ones all throughout your life, right?

[00:14:13] Maybe you became a parent, maybe you became, um, a business owner. Maybe you became, I don’t know, whatever, right? Whatever identity you’ve stepped into, you might not have done it on purpose, but what’s fun is that with this, you get to do it on purpose. You get to choose the identity that you want, and you get to practice it.

[00:14:32] Okay, so now that you’ve identified which one that is, let’s go through these four different things. Your words. This is huge. Your I Am statements. So with this new identity that you’re stepping into, I wanna ask you, what are the sentences that you say to yourself maybe on a regular basis or in the back of your mind that are not aligned with it?

[00:14:58] What do you tell yourself? Right? What are the I AM statements, or how do you see yourself in a way that you’re like, I didn’t even realize, maybe that was a thought. So I’m gonna give you an example from me, um, that I didn’t, I just thought it’s who I was. And so let me just pause. I gotta actually think of an example.

[00:15:32] Okay, so I’m gonna give you an example that I had that I really had to let go of in order to step into the life that I have. It was this belief that I had that I wasn’t smart, and that’s because I struggled in school. I couldn’t get good scores on tests. I couldn’t read fast. I had dyslexia. I thought I wasn’t smart.

[00:15:55] So whenever it came to business and looking at numbers and wanting to set big goals, I thought, well, I’m not smart enough for that. That’s for smart people. But once I realized the power of our words and the power of our thoughts, I realized that was a sentence I was saying is that I’m not smart. I thought it was just who I was.

[00:16:18] But I realize, no, that’s a sentence I tell myself. That’s a belief system I hold. And luckily I have a beautiful, wonderful husband who. Does not let me limit myself very often. So a lot of times he’ll call me out and I remember whenever I told him that one time early in our relationship and he was like, what are you talking about?

[00:16:36] You’re one of the smartest, most intuitive people I’ve ever met. He is like, you’re defining smart by one. Thing that is so limiting. He is like, you are so wise and brilliant. I’m like, wait, what? What? Like, tell me more. But he helped me see that it was like an identity that I was holding that isn’t accurate.

[00:16:56] So I wanna ask you that. Who do you think you are that’s holding you back? Are you ready to let that go? Are you ready to stop telling yourself that and let’s expand it? How do you wanna start talking to yourself? What do you wanna start telling yourself each day? When you look into the mirror? What do you wanna tell yourself?

[00:17:16] How do you wanna talk into your own eyes? Right? What do you want to think? You gotta start asking yourself these questions, and this is really great. Journaling prompts. What do I actually wanna think? How does the version of me at that next level identity think? Get that down. It’s gonna be so powerful.

[00:17:37] Okay. The next one is how you carry yourself, right? So when thinking about this new identity that you’re expanding into, I want you to think about that future self who’s already there. Who is it? And I say future self, but like time is relative. So you can step into it right now. But I think the way that our brains work, it’s helpful to look at it as, oh, the future self, the one that I’m stepping into, right?

[00:18:02] It’s almost seeing it in the future, but you can start practicing that version of you now. Right. So how does that version of you breathe, right? Maybe you’re working on normalizing bigger numbers. Maybe you’re, you’re working on feeling comfortable looking at your bank account. Maybe you are getting more comfortable on sales calls.

[00:18:25] How does that version of you breathe when you’re in that space? Right? When you’re on that consult call? How does that version of you breathe whenever you are looking at your numbers? Maybe you’re working on visibility and you, the next version of you is becoming more visible, posting more often. Maybe it’s getting yourself, you know, online and sharing in a bigger way.

[00:18:48] How do you breathe as you’re posting? Right? Start practicing that. What’s your posture like? What’s your facial expressions like? What’s your presence like? What’s the energy that you step into practice that you can do it now? It’s so big. It’s kind of like I was saying about even with meditation, how posture is so big.

[00:19:15] It’s one of the foundational pieces of meditation and like I remember when my husband started learning meditation. He couldn’t sit in a lotus position, it would hurt his back. And he also couldn’t sit up straight. So literally for like, I think it was a month, two months straight, he was like, well, I can’t really go to a meditation retreat ’cause you have to sit like that.

[00:19:33] He’s like, I gotta practice getting my back strong. So he would sit up against the wall and then he would like come back and so that he wasn’t leaning on the wall for like the last. Five minutes of the meditation, and then he would work his way up to seven, right? Because he wanted to get the posture right.

[00:19:48] He knew that that’s the position you sit in when you’re at a meditation retreat, and he had to strengthen that posture. Right. And then now when he gets in that posture, he instantly drops in, his body knows it’s time to go meditate. He, his body knows where it’s going. So I want you to think about this with the identity that you are stepping into.

[00:20:06] What is the posture of that? How do you hold yourself? How do you carry yourself? Right? Breathing, how you hold yourself, what you dress in. And again, I’m not saying you have to be someone that you’re not. ’cause I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking like, oh gosh, now I have to dress like a business woman and get these clothes that I feel really uncomfortable in and you know, that kind of thing.

[00:20:32] And that’s not true. That’s not true. What is the version of you? Where right, the most, you, you right the, the version of you that feels comfortable, that feels like yourself, but also feels confident and feels like that next identity. It doesn’t mean you’re necessarily gonna wear something that someone else who’s in that identity looks like, but it’s like, what is the version for you?

[00:20:59] And it might not be any different, but these are all just different offerings and different practices that you can step into for this next version of you. The third one environment that we talked about, right? So think about it like this, that version of you that you’re stepping into, what do they consume?

[00:21:17] What do they consume? Let’s think about what do they consume in terms of what they’re watching, what they’re listening to, what they’re putting in their body, what they’re drinking. What do they consume? What are the adjustments that you need to make to be that highest next evolution of yourself? How can you shift those now 1%.

[00:21:37] You don’t have to do it overnight, but simply thinking about how can I make even a one to 10% shift right now to get closer to that version of me? Environment is also who you surround yourself with. So are there people that maybe you’re people pleasing and saying yes to, but really they deplete your energy and you realize they’re just takers.

[00:21:59] They’re not giving you anything back. There’s not an equal exchange. It might be time to let go of those people in your life or to set some boundaries that do allow you to be in your highest self. Or if they’re like family members and you’re like, you know what? They don’t have the best energy, but I’m gonna manage my mind around that.

[00:22:19] But I do need to fill that cup in other ways. So maybe that means it’s time to go put yourself in environments of people who do reflect the same values as you, who are in that next evolution, right? This is why I love Masterminds and I host masterminds and I hope group, group coaching calls is because it’s a space where people can intentionally put themselves in to have an environment.

[00:22:44] Of people who get it, who are on the same level, who are on the same page, who are going for the same things, who are supportive, who are like, yes, let’s do it. Who aren’t trying to tear them down, who aren’t trying to bring them down to their past identities. They are like, no, I see you in your highest self.

[00:23:00] Let’s go together. It’s powerful. This is why so many, you know, very successful wealthy people, they surround themselves with that because vibration matters, right? So. Definitely think about your I, your environment and what you wanna normalize, what you wanna go around, right? And it may even be just like cleaning up your house.

[00:23:23] That’s something that I have been practicing this year big time, because I’m not gonna lie, I used to be kind of like. Not like super messy, but let’s say it wouldn’t feel very zen. I would have clutter here and there. It wouldn’t make my bed. Um, I just kinda, it, it was a little bit of like, I knew where everything organized chaos, I would say right.

[00:23:45] And me and Josh, we used to both say, well, we’re creatives. And Joshua would always say, well, Einstein was messy and he was a genius. I’m like, Josh, we need to stop telling ourselves that that is like a limiting belief that is totally, totally sure it might’ve worked for him, but like, that’s not the version of us we wanna be.

[00:23:59] So like, let’s stop saying that and let’s make our environment feel zen and clean and like expanded and bright, you know, and cheerful because it really makes a difference and you can feel it when you go into environments that feel. Really good, you feel expanded. So definitely adjust your environment to like match the identity that you wanna step into.

[00:24:27] Um, and then last but not least is where you take your attention. So what you’re focused on. Right. And one of my favorite books, I think I’ve mentioned it on the podcast before, it’s called The Gap and the Gain.

[00:25:01] It is called The Gap in the Game by Dan Sullivan, and what I love about this book is that it’s. A entire book on why it is so important to focus on the gain, not the gap, right? So meaning focusing on gratitude, focusing on the wins, focusing on how far you’ve come, not how much further you have to go, right?

[00:25:30] Focus on the growth that you’ve experienced. Focus on what’s good. Focus on the blessings. Not the obstacles, right? When you focus on what’s wrong or when you focus on what could go wrong, that dictates your identity, right? And it’s gonna dictate how you feel. So. It’s really important to practice intentionally focusing and in my all the programs that I have, whether it’s my group coaching program, the Money Manifestation Movement, or my mastermind, the Becoming a Millionaire Mastermind.

[00:26:04] We all practice celebration, wins and gratitude every single Friday, and I help them train themselves to look for it at least once a week. Look at what the wind’s, gratitude and celebrations are. Right. And no matter what, if you start looking for ’em, you’ll find them. And the wild thing is right, and this is just law of attraction in action, is that when you focus on those things, you will start having more of them.

[00:26:31] Literally, you will like, the more you celebrate, the more things to celebrate will be attracted into your life. So that’s law of attraction right there. That’s manifestation right there. But your focus trains your identity. So start focusing on purpose on what could go right. I have this other practice where it’s about having this unwavering belief in a positive outcome, and it’s a practice of seeing, like even in the midst of so many challenges or so many obstacles, or maybe things not going the way that my brain wanted them to go, I decide on purpose, there’s gonna be a good outcome.

[00:27:07] I don’t know what it is. It’s not all making sense right now, but I have this unwavering belief in a positive outcome, and that’s so powerful. It’s so powerful, and it’s something I have to train my brain and practice often. In fact, I got the practice from one of my favorite people to watch, which if you’ve listened to this podcast deep enough, if you’ve gone back far enough, you know that I.

[00:27:32] Love, love, love watching people who overcome like amazing things. Like I love watching people who, basically the Olympics or people who are doing things that just seem impossible, right? Maybe it’s like a mountain climber or, um, for this one it’s, lemme find the name.

[00:28:26] One of my favorites is Alex Hunt, who is a free solo climber. So he, while it makes me so anxious watching these things, and I think what you are outta your mind, dude. But the mental training that this guy has to have, because he climbs mountains buildings like he climbed El Capitan, El, sorry, El Capitan in Yosemite, like a straight up, massive.

[00:28:54] Slab of wall, like huge without a rope. Like this guy is, I’m not just gonna say it nuts, but he has trained his mental capacity and himself in such. An amazing, amazing way, and this is what I learned from him, is he has an unwavering belief and a positive outcome. That’s how he does it. That’s how he achieves it.

[00:29:21] I listened to it on a podcast and someone was saying that is what is so inspiring about him. Like people have climbed with him, have said he just has this unwavering belief and a positive outcome in that. Stuck with me, and so it’s a practice for me. But that is a, you know, that’s an example of where you take your attention.

[00:29:39] Can you see, no matter what, this is gonna be a positive outcome. I believe in a positive outcome, even whenever it looks like things are going terrible, right? Maybe it’s mid-launch, it’s super messy, or it’s almost at the end of the launch and you have no one in there. Can you have an unwavering belief and a positive outcome, right?

[00:29:56] Or maybe it’s, you know, you have not hit your goal this year. Can you have an unwavering belief in a positive outcome in your business? Maybe things get rocky. Can you have an unwavering belief in a positive outcome? See, this is such a practice. So where you take your attention matters. So again, these are four different things that shape your identity.

[00:30:19] Your words, how you carry yourself, your envi environment, and where you take your attention. So I wanna encourage you to practice, practice, practice. Pick one, pick two, pick all of them if you want practice, that is how you are gonna become that next version of yourself. And I’m so excited for you. I can’t wait to hear how it goes.

[00:30:44] Come connect with me, let me know. And if you feel so inclined, I would love it if you would leave me a podcast review. I haven’t asked for one in a minute, but they light me up like never before. So if you would be so kind to do that, I would love that. You can tell me how you like the episode and I can’t wait to hear about how this impacts you.

[00:31:05] All right, my friend. I’ll talk to you next week.