What’s your goal? Where are you headed? What do you want to be doing in 5 years? Where do you picture yourself in 10 years? All fair questions, but all bad questions. Time to get rid of your goals and make commitments to your identity.
Time to get rid of your goals and make commitments to your identity.
Frederick Douglass was born and raised a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. Early in his life, he, like so many others, was separated from his mother and raised by a midwife. At the age of eight, he was sent to Baltimore as a domestic servant. He actually reported being treated well and at times felt part of the family and noted, “I was treated as a child now…and soon learned to regard [his slaveholder] as something more akin to a mother, than a slaveholding mistress.” His slaveholder even agreed to teach him to read but just as he managed to learn the alphabet, her husband, made clear that he couldn’t permit it. But Frederick had adopted a new identity in his reading, and he was determined to teach himself.
Trading bread he took from the kitchen, he bribed whomever he could, to give him reading lessons. He snuck books to read and pages out of the workbooks the family’s son brought home from school to copy letters and punctuation. He copied Bible verses onto the lids of barrels. As he learned more about slavery, his identity transformed from slave to slave with a purpose – he was beginning to see the injustices that he would spend his life fighting against.
I wonder though, did Douglass sit back one day and write in his bullet journal that in five years he pictured himself sitting in an armchair reading the latest novel? Or did he grab a blank piece of parchment and write down a neat SMART goal to, “read a 200-page book cover to cover within one month by my twentieth birthday”? I don’t think so.
So what kept him moving forward even against odds that seemed insurmountable? I don’t have historical evidence for this but in reading a few of his biographies, I’ve noticed that he adopted a new identity that required him to read. At the age of 14, he got in a physical fight with a white slave handler and won. He would later say of the importance of the event in his identity, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” He walked toward his fear of the man with the whip, and literally beat it. At that moment, his identity began to shift further from a slave with a purpose to a free man on a mission. To be that man, he had to become even stronger with reading, writing and speaking. He didn’t need a SMART goal to learn to read, it was an integral piece of his identity and therefore the only logical thing to do. Douglass was an activist, so he read and wrote.
We can learn a lot from this example. I have often pushed people toward SMART goals but lately, I’ve begun to reconsider. Goals are useful but they are easy to not attain. Excuses can be rampant with goals and most people will even tell you it’s ok if you don’t reach them. Douglass didn’t need a goal.
Instead, let’s make identity statements. James Clear, in his now best-selling book, Atomic Habits highlighted shifting our identity as a key to attaining a new habit and we need to do the same. We need to tell ourselves, and the world, who we are instead of what we do.
We need to tell ourselves, and the world, who we are instead of what we do.
Here’s how to get started:
- Start with a goal you have and transform it into an identity statement. For example,
- “I want to run a half- marathon” becomes “I am a runner”
- “I want to write a book” into “I am a writer”
- “I want to be a better dad” to “I am a great dad”
- “I want to complete 75 Hard” becomes “I am disciplined”
- Think about your main priorities in LIFE and create your identity around them. Such as,
- “I am someone who operates with love toward others every day”
- “I maintain my integrity and others count on me”
- “I build fellowship with others by being open and vulnerable”
- “I pursue excellence with small, consistent action.”
- Write the logical next step to becoming who you say you are
- “I am a runner, so I need to run tomorrow”
- “I am disciplined so I won’t eat that bag of chips”
- “I am a writer so I will write today”
- “I am a great dad so I will spend time with my daughter today and put my phone away”
- Take one small action toward your identity NOW
- “I am a runner so I will put my shoes on and walk outside”
- “I am a writer so I will open my book draft and sit at the desk with it”
- “I am a great dad so I will put time on my calendar blocked out to be with my son”
- “I am disciplined so I will make a list for the grocery store instead of going without a plan”
- Go!
- I promise if you put your running shoes on and walk outside, you’re pretty damn likely to go for a run. If you go to the store with a list, you are less likely to buy food you don’t need. If you put time on your calendar to spend with your kids, it becomes as important as that meeting with your client.
This idea of identity instead of goals is small but incredibly powerful. It is the reason we create LIFE Actions within the LIFE Council. They aren’t goals. They are the promise to maintain our identities as men of love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence. The principles are not what we do, they are who we become.
The LIFE principles are not what we do, they are who we become.
One caveat to keep in mind – you’ll have to feel a little bit like a fraud if you do this right. You might think, “How can I possibly call myself a great dad when I hardly see my kids?” or “Who the hell am I to say that I am a runner?” And yea, you might be right. But the point here is to first declare who you are and then become that person. The idea that you must be it before you declare it, doesn’t make sense. Declare who you are and then take the actions to reflect it.
You’ll have to feel a little bit like a fraud if you do this right.
Weekend Challenge
This weekend, you need to decide who you are, and you must write it down. Follow the steps above to create 2-3 identity statements and then share them with us and someone you are close to. Once you tell people you are a runner, you better be running (maintain integrity, remember?).
I can’t wait to see who you guys are. I might know your goals and a lot about you, or I may not know you at all. Either way, tell us who you are, tell yourself who you are, and then let the LIFE Council serve as your accountability.
Have a great weekend everyone! Check in and get after it!
***This information and story on Frederick Douglass came from an awesome read I just finished titled, Forged in Crisis by Nancy Koehn. I definitely recommend it!