Why is cultivating a new identity so critical to success?

This week, I wrote about my current identity transformation, my favorite fictional identity transformations, and how I go about finding a new identity.

Let's jump into why I'm spending an entire week writing about identity.

An inspiring, well fitting identity will be a force multiplier, a great reinforcer and make everything easier.

Every single one of us has formed our current identity based on some combination and culmination of events and experiences from our past. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, our identity has been forming since birth. Our identity has shifted many times and will continue to shift for as long as we're alive.

In college, I had a much different identity than I do today, and if I tried to go back to that identity, my liver would waive the white flag. When I worked on Wall St, I believed I was on the path to becoming CEO of a major corporation. Those identities served me well and no longer fit so well, so I've moved on.

When it's built from an intentional place, identity can be a powerful tool in our tool belt. It can be aspirational and help pull us forward through challenging situations and tough times. It can be a beacon of light that inspires others. It can be a magnet that attracts people and resources to help you.

The magic of finding the perfect identity is that it becomes great reinforcer:

• A well fitting identity reinforces our North Star, and our North Star reinforces our identity.
• A well fitting identity reinforces our habits, and our habits reinforce our identity.
• A well fitting identity reinforces who we are, and who we are reinforces our identity.

And of course it works to our detriment in the opposite direction. Identities that don't serve us can reinforce bad habits and make us feel lost.

When our identity is working with us, life just becomes easier. Easier to achieve the things that are important to us. Easier to get into a flow state. Easier to make decisions. And easier to be in alignment with who we are here to be.

One of the best investments we can make with our time is to cultivate an identity that serves us well. The effects of this will ripple through all areas of our life and will pay itself back over and over again.

How can I think 14 steps ahead?

There's this myth that's perpetuated over and over again that the smartest people are always 3 steps ahead of the rest of us. They have this master plan that's unfolding exactly as they predicted.

I found that almost never to be the case even when it comes to the smartest people I know.

That are not playing 3-dimensional chess or any other game that our puny human brains can't comprehend. They are playing the same exact game as all of us.

They are just playing the game differently.

There's a reason why these very rare humans give the impression of being 14 steps ahead though. It involves a simple three step formula that makes it much more attainable:

1. Have a very clear long term vision of where you are going. A purpose, a North Star, a mission. Call it what ever you want. It's a point very far out on the horizon that you are aiming for either personally or as a business.
2. Take one single step in the direction of the North Star.
3. Assess whether that step moved you toward the North Star or away from it, and go back to Step 2.

That's it. One step. Assess. Next step. Assess. Step again. Assess.

Here's where the "smartest" people I know play it differently though.

Instead of spending an exorbitant amount of time meticulously plan out each of the next 14 steps, they trust in their ability to assess and course correct. They take that step with full confidence in their ability to figure it out and with an incomplete set of data. Then they assess, plan only as much as is absolutely necessary and then step again.

It seems like magic to the rest of us because they are moving so fast. They are cutting out massive amounts time chunks from every cycle. They appear to be 14 steps ahead because they are actually taking 14 steps with new information at each step in the time it may take a competitor to take just one single step.

Figure out where you are going. Take one singular step. Assess. Step again.