107 | Decide Who You Want to Become

Lawyers are used to doing all the things and keeping track of it all in 6-minute increments.

But achieving your financial goals is about more than just action. It’s about becoming the person you need to become to achieve those goals.

It requires decoupling your identity from your current results and identifying yourself as the person who has achieved the goals you want to achieve.

In this episode, let’s talk about why your identity is critical to your goals.

Topics Discussed

• the importance of becoming the person you want to become
• tying your identity to your current finances vs. identifying as the person who has the finances you want
• what happens when you identify as the person who has the financial results you want

Listen to the Episode 

Resources mentioned

Episode 77: When the Willpower Runs Out

Atomic Habits by James Clear

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If you’re ready to learn the mindset and strategies to master your money, let’s schedule a call. 

Connect with me

Social media: Instagram and LinkedIn

Email: hello@rhothomas.com

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Lightly Edited Transcript

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. Today we are talking about becoming the person you want to be. My coach once said, decide who you want to become and become that person as quickly as possible. And that’s always stuck with me. And what it means is you’re not going to achieve the goals you set for yourself or get the things you want for yourself without becoming the person who achieve those goals or one of those things. So in terms of your finances, you’re not going to have the cash flow that you want or the net worth that you want, or the debt balance that you want the savings account that you want without becoming the person who has that cash flow that network that development. So what did that person want to become think about? What is the person who has the debounce that you want or the network that you want? Or who spends the way that you want to spend or manages their money the way you want to manage your money? What does that person think about themselves about money, about budgeting, about spending, about debt, about saving right? How does that person think about all those things? Versus how you think about those things? Are you acting in line with how that person acts? Are you acting from the current position you’re in now when I get to be treated like, do you see yourself as that person or do you see yourself as someone who’s trying to be that person who’s trying to pay off debt was trying to save trying to stop overspending trying to build off? Often we tie ourselves to our current identity. So we identify a person past finances that we don’t want, we say things like, I’m just kind of over Spencer, who doesn’t say you work past it, or who doesn’t have as much money as I want. And then we push against the identity and tried to do something different. But when you do that you’re pushing against the person you perceive yourself to be and you are much less likely to achieve your goals so it’s easy to fall off track by something you’re just trying to do a really good example of this and James clears book atomic habits. So he talks about how changing your habit starts with changing your identity and the way you think about yourself, and he gave the example of two people who have decided to stop smoking. Each one is later offered a cigarette one says no thanks trying to quit the other says No thanks. I’m not a smoker. embodying the identity of not being a smoker, you’re going to have a much different reaction, much different thoughts much different feelings without offering a cigarette. Like you’re not. You’re not taking a cigarette. When this is just who I am. Of course I’m making a decision the way a nonsmoker would envision. When you’re trying to quit another hand, you’re pushing against the person that you believe you are and you’re doing something completely different that outside of your meter. So there’s an element of resistance here. It’s similar to our conversation about willpower back in episode 77. You have to use willpower when you’re pushing against what you’re actually going to do versus when you’re changing your lifestyle and making choices in service of your goals. The reasonable power only works for so long as because you’re fighting against yourself and what you actually want to do that take a lot of energy and get tired of fighting so you’ll eventually just get in. So the same thing here. When you’re thinking about how you’re gonna manage the finances. You can continue to identify with your current financial situation and push against the resistance and you see yourself as now and going into going into something different, which will always be this resistance thing. Or you can decide who you want to become and you become that person. You embody that identity you think like that person make decisions that person would make you do things that person will do and you don’t do things that person wouldn’t do. Every decision you make every action you take leads to a particular result. So the finances you have now are the result of the previous decisions and actions that you may have taken would come from what you’ve been thinking about yourself to this point. That means if you want to have your finances, you have to make some tough decisions, taking different actions. Where does that come from thinking differently about yourself and what possible for you, you make decisions that move you closer to becoming the person who has the finances you want when you decide to be that person. Ask yourself how is that person thinking about things differently than the way I’m thinking about them? What is that person doing differently for what I’m doing now? One of the popular quotes from the book atomic habits says every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wanna become. That means you don’t have to do everything perfectly every single time. You just wanna take more actions in line with person who has the finances you want than not, again, that starts with identifying as that person. You’re gonna show up a lot differently. If you see yourself as a person who just doesn’t overspend receives money or who manage your money well, right who doesn’t smoke. Versus someone who’s just trying to do that, it takes practice for sure. But when you think of the way the person you want to become thinks, and you make decisions, the way that person makes decisions, and you do things that person would do over time you eventually become that person. As Hal Elrod once said Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become. And if you want support implemented a simple process for becoming the person you wanna become to achieve your financial goals, let’s talk about how we can work together you can have to work with outside school, that’s gonna be presentation. Alright, so that’s it for this episode. I’m gonna put me on social media. I’m on LinkedIn as Rho Thomas and Instagram I am rho Thomas, subscribe to the show and leave a review we’ll have more people to find it and think of a friend or two who you think would find information useful and share this episode with them as a close friend. I pray that you take the information you learn here apply to your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently week after week. You’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice, you deserve. Talk to you later.