There's one thing nobody talks about enough when it comes to building a personal brand, and I'm genuinely obsessed with it right now because I see it constantly. And it's this: you don't get results by trying to be the person. You get results by deciding to be the person who does the thing.

Today I'm diving into identity—the specific identity that's going to get you where you actually want to go and help you chase bigger things. Because here's the truth: the moment your identity matches the task, the resistance falls away.

Understanding Identity and How It Drives Business Results

Let me give you an example. If you want to become a runner and every day you're dragging yourself out of bed like “ugh, I've gotta go for a run,” that resistance is going to chip away at you. But if you wake up and think “I'm a runner, that's who I am”—suddenly you just do it. The resistance drops.

It's the same in business. If you wake up every morning saying “I've gotta create content,” it feels like a chore. But if you think “Of course I'm creating content today because that's who I am, because I'm someone building a personal brand and an online business”—well, that's just what you do.

This is where the power of identity comes in. When you identify with a type of person, a collective of people who do a certain thing, it supports who you believe you are.

Here's what I want you to understand: whatever you're focusing on, whatever you're telling yourself is either fuelling you or draining you. If you spend your time comparing yourself to everyone else, wishing your business was like theirs, wishing your personal brand was like theirs—that's going to drain your energy. Fast.

But making the decision every morning that you're the person who does this thing? That makes your life so much easier.

The Five Identity Shifting Pillars for Business Transformation

I'm going to share five identity shifting pillars that'll help shift your identity into who you really want to be. We're moving away from trying and towards deciding that this is who you are now. And then acting from a place of ease because you're already in that identity.

Think of this like reprogramming your operating system. Just like a computer has specific systems and programs that run automatically, we want to reprogram ourselves. We want to be the person who shows up, who creates, who builds, who sells—and who does it all with minimal resistance.

Will the resistance completely disappear? No, because we're human. But when you start to program yourself to believe you're that person, everything flows so much smoother.

Pillar One: Get Crystal Clear on What You're Actually Going After

You can't shift your identity if you don't know what you're shifting towards. So let's get specific.

Look at the next 12 months. Imagine everything's going exactly how you want it. You've achieved the things you're chasing. What are those things? Write them down. Visualise them. Get really specific—not just vague, pie-in-the-sky stuff.

Maybe it's 50 people in your coaching programme. You're speaking on stages. You're getting invited onto podcasts. You've got consistent $30-50k months happening. You're feeling genuinely confident. You've got free time to do the things you love. Maybe you're playing pickleball twice a week (that's just me, but you get it).

Write it down. And if you're like me, chat to ChatGPT about it. Ask it to ask you questions, then answer them. A brilliant prompt is: “If I fully became the person I wanted to be, what would the next 12 months of my life look like? Specifically in my business, my habits, my relationships, and my daily decisions?”

That bypasses vague goal-setting and goes straight to identity, behaviour, and outcome.

Pillar Two: The Identity Interrupt—Breaking Old Patterns

If we're shifting into a new identity, we've got to interrupt the old pattern and the old identity. And that means getting really honest about who you are right now.

What behaviours are you doing every day? What are you saying about yourself? What are your “I am” statements?

Write them down:

• I'm a person who works out every day
• I'm a person who eats healthy
• I'm a person who sells every day in my business
• I'm a person who creates content

Now, flip it. On one side of the page, write down your current identity. On the other side, write down the identity of the person who achieves everything you said in step one.

Who are they? What do they do? They're someone who goes after opportunities, sends the email, shows up, books the meeting. Whatever it is for you.

Now look at those two identities side by side. You might already have some of them. Maybe you're already creating content every day—tick, tick, great. But is there an elevation needed? Maybe you're not just creating content, maybe you're creating higher quality, more compelling content. Maybe that's something to work towards.

Acknowledge where you're already winning. You're already in that identity. But then identify the behaviours that are keeping you stuck.

Here's where neuroscience comes in. I'm a certified mindset coach and I'm a bit obsessed with neuroscience. Your neuroplasticity—your brain's ability to change, evolve, and grow—research shows we can break old patterns when we stop reinforcing them. When we stop doing them over and over. But we can only really break them when we do it consciously, because most of the time we're operating on autopilot.

It's like when you drive somewhere and suddenly you're there and you think “how did I get here?” It's because your brain has imprinted that route. Same thing happens with your morning routine, your habits, everything.

So make a decision: what do I want my morning to actually look like? How am I going to do a pattern interrupt?

When I wanted to create content more regularly, I literally blocked 8:30 to 9:30 every morning in my diary as “content creation.” It didn't take that long, but seeing it there meant I knew I needed to do it. Now it just happens on autopilot.

Think about the patterns you want to interrupt. When I challenged my clients recently, I asked: “If you wanted to make $50k by the end of the year, what would you need to do differently?” That's a pattern interrupt. It's asking a bigger question that breaks you out of the norm and requires new actions, new thinking, and new beliefs.

Pillar Three: Rewrite Your Stories and Speak Your New Identity Out Loud

Your brain has a story on repeat. That story determines what you do.

That story might be: “It's really hard to make money.” Or “If I'm visible, I'll be judged.” Or “I'm too old, too far, too young, too this, too that.”

Whatever stories you keep telling yourself—they're determining what you end up doing. So you've got to know what those stories are to rewrite them.

First, write down your limiting stories. Not fun, but necessary.

Then rewrite them from the identity of your future self. The person you're moving towards. The person you're shifting to. What's their story?

“Clients are waiting for me. When I show up, the right people will find me. Money is easy to make.”

Now say it out loud. I know it feels weird, but there's research on this. When we say things out loud, it helps our brain rewire. It's so much more powerful than silent thoughts.

Use “I am” statements:

• “I'm someone who creates content every day”
• “I'm someone who creates rooms that people want to be in”
• “I'm someone who speaks on big stages”

Claim that identity. Research on building new neural pathways shows that repetition and emotion strengthen those pathways. So really feel it. Believe it. Feel it to the point where you're genuinely convinced. Every time something small happens that moves you towards your goal, get grateful.

“I'm so grateful I got the invitation to speak. I'm so grateful people are enquiring about working with me. I'm so grateful for the new clients who signed up.”

Your goal is to speak your new identity out loud. Speak the stories that are rewriting what you're going after.

Pillar Four: Embodied Action—The Behaviour That Creates Identity

This is where we move from belief to behaviour. What did Joe Dispenza say? Believe, behave, become. That's embodying the identity.

So think about this: what's one habit your future self would never skip? Now do the smallest version of that today.

Track identity-driven actions, not just outcome-driven actions. Every time you notice you're acting from the identity of the person who does the thing, acknowledge it. Plant the seed. This is what we're doing from now on.

Make that conscious action. Do that intentional pattern interrupt. Decide: I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this. And I know that it takes time to build a habit—21 days, 35 days, whatever—but just being the person who decides “this is a habit I'm building, this is an identity I'm stepping into”—that's what matters.

Pillar Five: Environmental Reinforcement—Your Surroundings Shape Your Identity

Here's something most people miss: your identity is shaped more by your environment than by motivation alone.

Think about your environment. If you didn't want to get on your phone in the morning, you'd move it from your bedside table into the kitchen or your office—out of reach. That's environmental design.

Don't want to eat junk food anymore? Don't buy it. Want to move more? Book it in your diary, go for a walk with a friend, lay out your exercise gear the night before so when you get up, you know what you're doing.

Audit your environment. Is this actually helping me or hindering me from achieving what I want? Am I stepping into the identity I want?

One thing I'm doing more is meeting up with other business friends for great conversations, getting out of my office and being in different environments. Because I know when I'm in different spaces having those conversations, new ideas come up. That's an environmental shift.

And here's the important bit: you need to remove the anchors to your old self. If you keep everything the same, it's going to be really hard to change. Think about what that looks like for you.

Stop Trying and Start Deciding

Here's the real shift. When you stop trying and just decide that this is how it's going to be—that's powerful. A decision isn't wishy-washy. It's a yes or no. Am I shifting identities? Yes. Full stop.

“Okay, what do I need to do to make that happen?”

All the things we've talked about today.

When you do that, your brain will change. Your resistance will drop. Your actions will align. Your energy will rise because you're like “Yes, I'm doing this.” And here's the best part: your results will compound, because if you're doing that thing every single day, being in the identity of the person achieving your goal, moving towards what you want—that compounds.

Why Identity Is Everything in Business

I work with a lot of coaching clients on this, and nine times out of ten, when they tell me “my mindset is fine, I don't need mindset work”—they're not where they want to be because of identity. They don't see themselves as the person who does the things that'll get them there.

And the truth is, building a personal brand is an identity game. You've got to believe you've got something valuable to share. You've got to believe you can build the audience you want. You've got to believe you can create the product that'll help your clients and earn you the money you want.

If you don't believe those things are possible for you, if you don't see yourself as the person who'll do it—it's going to be very hard to achieve.

Your Action Steps Starting Now

So what can you do right now?

One: Write down exactly what you're aiming for. Where do you want to be?

Two: Interrupt just one pattern. What's one thing you want to change? Start small.

Three: Rewrite and speak one identity out loud. “I'm someone who…”

Four: Take one embodied action today. Move your phone. Send that email. Contact that client. Do something that feels a bit scary but exciting.

Shifting your identity isn't always easy. These things have been entrenched in us for a long time. But when we recognise the stories, when we understand what's holding us back, when we see what's possible – everything starts to shift.

Even for me, I'm someone who creates a YouTube video every week, even when I don't feel like it, even when things are hard, even when life feels chaotic. Because that's who I am. I had to lean into that today, actually. I thought “maybe I'll just do the podcast, maybe I'll just do audio today.” But my brain said no—because I've trained it. “No, Suze, that's not what we do. We do the video every week because we've committed to it.”

That's what shifting your identity does. It moves you from “do I have to do this today? I'm not sure” to “this is who we are. This is what we do.”

That's the power of identity.

 

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