Who are you being?
The million euro question
You’ve probably heard this a million times: “It’s not a discipline problem, it’s an identity problem” (yeah, it’s always been said like that even before people started using GenAI tools). This statement usually pertains to people who say they want to be more disciplined about going to the gym and getting those abs, especially when the motivation is not there.
And the rebuttal is that it’s not that they need to become more disciplined to get their asses to the gym more; it’s that they need to become the person who enjoys going to the gym, or the person who is fit, or any other version of a person who will just naturally go to the gym because it’s part of who they are.
This topic has been living rent-free in my brain for a long time now since it’s a huge part of my coaching. And it’s been a huge part of my life.
After all, the premise is that the world we’re living in, the reality we perceive, is mostly a mirror of who we are being. That the successes we collect and the challenges we face are merely feedback for us to assess who we are being at any given moment.
Personally, my RAS has been working overtime to show me this topic more and more:
On LinkedIn, where mental fitness is now dominating my algorithm vs AI
On Substack, where identity-driven personal development posts have finally suppressed posts about how to grow their Substack subscribers in 30 days
On Reddit, where the woo-woo subs I follow are talking nonstop about identity and state-driven manifestation
Note: When I ask myself who I am being now that these posts seem to be all over my feed, the answer seems to be — I’m being somebody who is growing my coaching toolkit to help my clients achieve their goals. lol
Why is this important?
The majority of my coaching clients come to work with me for the following reasons:
They’re looking for a new job/promotion but struggling to get it
They’re looking to improve their relationship with their stakeholders and/or gain more influence in their organization
They’re feeling stuck where they are but don’t know where they want to be next (much less get there)
And then they have a long list of reasons for why they haven’t achieved their goals yet. Usually includes:
Not enough experience
They need to improve on something first
Circumstances or people are blocking them from what they want
But when I ask them, “Why should they hire/promote/follow you?” The pause before the answer, the response that sounds like a question, or the struggle to come up with even 3 reasons for why they should get what they want is very telling.
Some might say, because I deserve it. Ok, cool — but why? The same pause, invisible question mark, or struggle usually will come up.
When clients come to me looking for work, their search is already accompanied with so much anxiety about how the market sucks, the competition is brutal, the opportunities are less, etc.
They usually look for strategies on how to make their CV stand out, their LinkedIn profile flawless, and their interview answers impeccable.
To be honest, optimizing these things is the easy part. But when the identity behind these optimizations is still coming from a place of proving that they’re worthy — one point in the process will fail. They might even get the job, but still struggle IN it.
The people who want to get a promotion are pretty much the same. They try to prove that they’re worthy only to end up buried neck deep in more work that they took on, hoping it would make them look great. Or they end up head-to-head with nearly all of their stakeholders or their team because they’re trying to be heard so they can be seen as more strategic or something.
So what’s one to do then?
Ask yourself, who are you being behind these actions?
Are you being the person who IS ALREADY a kick-ass Product Manager (or insert your ideal role) and who is an asset to any team or organization they will join?
Are you being the person who IS ALREADY a strategic and effective leader who can help their team enable their organization to achieve its goals?
Are you being the person who knows they can be successful in anything they set their eyes on?
Because when you ARE, the stories you use to share your expertise and how you show up in interviews become very different. The way you interact with your stakeholders and present to the organization changes too.
And most importantly, for me at least, the meaning you give to things like the question the senior director asked during the meeting or the feedback you received from your team, or any challenge you end up facing becomes less about a gap you need to fill and becomes more of an invitation to explore what perceptions you might be having about the circumstance in front of you.
And when this exploration is met with curiosity (even excitement), you might find that the thing you’re trying to achieve can actually be easier to have than you originally thought it could be.
Let me share some examples:
01 One of my previous clients wanted to look for a job elsewhere because she felt she was being overlooked in her current company for opportunities, but she was struggling to get interviews.
The identity she was unconsciously holding was that she was not good enough yet hence, she couldn’t move up in her current organization.
Tbh, her CV was pretty impressive. I didn’t even ask her to change anything apart from nitpicking details. BUT what was tripping her up was when she was applying for roles. She hesitated to apply to the roles she found interesting and fit her requirements because she overthought her own fit for it every single time. So by the time she decided, the open role already had hundreds of applications.
So when we switched identities to already being an awesome-sauce PM who is already good enough for any opportunities she sets her eyes on, things changed.
Her actions naturally changed without forcing it. She got inspired to write product reviews/tear-downs for the products she admires and share them publicly. She also started mentoring other aspiring PMs. Both actions only reinforced who she already believes to be.
From there, she got invitations for interviews and even connection requests from the founders of those products she reviewed themselves.
Did she find a new job? Not exactly. But instead she finally got recognition and even better opportunities inside her current company. Turns out that her colleagues have been seeing her differently once she found the confidence to not be more visible to the outside world, but also within her organization.
02 Another client who was also on the job search journey was actually getting shit tons of interviews. But the interviews are her bottleneck. She couldn’t hit the last stage. There was always something missing, or she was overqualified for the role.
When we first started exploring how she was approaching answering the interview questions, 2 things stood out for us:
Her stories didn’t truly reflect the value she was capable of delivering to any company she would join
The way she was sharing her stories suddenly didn’t seem like her at all. I’ve known her for a while, so it was like seeing her switch to a completely different person in real time.
The stories to share might be an easy fix, but the “energy” behind it is an important ingredient to any conversation.
So we worked on her identity. To embody being somebody who already has not only so much experience as a functional expert but also somebody who has contributed shit tons of value to any team or organization she’s been part of.
She changed her stories. She chose to share the stories that not only reflected her impact but also reflected the problems she was most excited (on top of being capable) to solve. And the way she lit up when she told her stories made her forget that she was nervous. She started seeing interviews for what they truly were: a conversation between 2 parties who might enter into a transactional agreement in exchange for mutual value.
Not only did the dream job come immediately after that change, but a few other opportunities were also chasing her at the same time, desperate to get her on board.
***
I could go on and on with more examples about:
the Associate PM who got promoted to mid-level PM 6 months after she joined the company, even after the VP himself said that they don’t promote new hires less than one year after joining.
the Senior PM who created a new role for her in the organization after her burnout or the Senior PM who got the promotion to Lead after being told what her gaps were and they felt insurmountable
the Community Manager who ended up starting her own consulting business after being laid off even when circumstances seemed to be stacked against her
But the mechanisms are all the same. They changed who they were being. They shed the need to prove or over-extend. They stopped waiting for the world to confirm that they already ARE.
And in exchange, the world changed to reflect who they already know they’re being.
Some of my clients and I joke about how this is pretty much us working together to manifest their goals.
And in a way, we are. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m woo-woo and believe in manifestation.
I don’t subscribe to the mainstream manifestation rules, though that it’s the universe who gives us the stuff we want and when it doesn’t, it means it’s not meant to be.
I believe that it’s US who gives us what we want. And it can be anything and everything.
But to have anything and everything, we must first decide to be the person who knows they can have anything and everything they want. Even before the world validates this assumption.
We can write the most perfect CV or LinkedIn post or go to every networking event there is and still not land the job. The only thing we’re doing is burning ourselves out from all the trying. Because we might have decided unwittingly that we are the person who needs to try to be seen as capable.
But when we step into a different identity, the one who already knows that they’re good enough, that they’re an asset to any team/organization they’re part of, the outcomes just become inevitable. With or without the CV edit.
So before you look up another article on how to write your CV or figure out what course to take now in the age of AI, ask yourself first:
Who are you being right now?
Who would you be instead if everything was already working out in your favor?
How would this version of you be thinking, feeling, behaving?
How can you be this person now, even just in the thinking, feeling, and behaving? Before the outcome comes.
Honestly, the formula itself is simple. The being CAN be easy. But I do recognize that it’s a fight with ourselves and the mechanisms that have kept us safe (and made us play small for the longest time). So be gentle with yourself when you’re doing this exercise.
And if you need/want somebody to accompany you in this transformation journey, I’d love to help you! So let’s chat.
Kax
p.s.
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