How to Change Your Identity to Reach Fitness Goals

Nikkiey: I firmly believe this is a big reason why I accomplished my goals with changing my body composition so fast, and also how thousands of women are doing it inside of WarriorBabe.

What's going on, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder and brand personality of WarriorBabe, where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number four, all about who are you becoming. Guys, this is literally the fastest way to achieve results, yet the hardest, and it has nothing to do with nutrition or fitness. It's all mindset. And it is hands down one of my favorite things to talk about, because I firmly believe this is a big reason why I accomplished my goals with changing my body composition so fast, and also how thousands of women are doing it inside of WarriorBabe.

It's truly something that works, and you can put it into action immediately following this podcast to start accelerating your results. So let's just dive right into it, okay?

So the goals. Again, I've been speaking into New Year's resolutions and stuff in these past podcasts because it is the beginning of 2023, and so you guys are wanting to change your habits, or build new ones, or stop doing things and start doing other things, because you have these goals, right?

And the goals that you've set for yourself require you to act and be different than who you are right now. You have patterns, you have behaviors, you have unconscious things that you just go into doing automatically. And so it's one of the hardest things to break. And I want to share with you the number one tactic that has helped me to this day. If you have this goal for yourself and you remain the same, you're not going to get to that goal.

So think of it like this. Every action you take is a vote for the type of person that you wish to become. And let me just put this out there: no single instance will transform your beliefs. Not just one single week of hitting your workouts on point is going to transform your beliefs. But as the votes build up, as you take more actions weekly, so you're doing the one week, and then let's say you follow through the second week and the third week and the fourth week, those votes build up. So does the evidence of who you are becoming. A new you, a new identity.

You have to build a new you in order to get new goals. You have to do things differently than you are doing right now to get new goals. And something that I have done in the eight years of my whole journey is I've created basically a new identity around health and fitness for myself. This is a part of who I am now. I have peeled back all the layers of an onion, and I have embedded in the middle, at the root of this: this is me. This is my life. And we'll get there; I'll share that in future podcasts. But this is just the one thing that you can start doing right now.

And this is one reason why meaningful change does not require a radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity and who you are becoming. So these small habits that you're doing, like workouts, for example, since I already spoke to that: okay, this is a small habit that you're embedding for yourself this week. And then you're doing it next week, and then you're doing it the following week. And so that's making a meaningful difference by providing you, the human, evidence of who you are becoming.

And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. You don't have to do this, but a lot of people at the first of the year try and make all these radical changes. They try and do 10 different things and they try and change all 10 of those things at once. But all you really need to do is, okay, this first week, I'm just going to start working out. I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to make sure that I set my schedule to four days, and I'm going to accomplish that.

Cool. You do that for three weeks. And then maybe the third or fourth week, you start incorporating better nutritional habits. You start tracking your meals or you start paying attention to what you're eating. And then maybe you're paying attention to what you're eating and it's like, holy cow, I'm not eating a lot. And then maybe the sixth week you start incorporating tracking macronutrients. Then you spend the next six months learning how to do it optimally. Right? So meaningful change does not require a radical change. If the changes are small, and small habits make the meaningful difference, then it's actually big.

And that's the paradox of making small improvements. You guys following me here? Again, like I just said, you don't have to make 10 different changes at the beginning. You're not going to succeed that way. You're going to feel overwhelmed. You're going to get so mad at yourself. And this is where the yo-yo effect comes in mentally. It's like, oh, I didn't accomplish doing that, so therefore I'm a failure, so therefore I'm not going to follow through on trying to make any other changes because I'm going to fail. So if you just focus on one thing, you perfect that one thing, you make it into a habit for yourself, you are providing evidence of the person that you want to become.

So habits are the path to changing your identity. But you can't expect to change 10 habits in one week. This is where a lot of people get tripped up. Like I just said, the most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do. Right? That's what I said at the beginning: the goals you set for yourself require you to act and be different than who you are right now. So the way to change is to change what you're doing, and to change what you're doing is to look at the habits that you have. And if they don't serve you, then you have to change them into how they can serve you, to be evidence of the person that you want to become.

So for example, again, workouts. Each time you work out, you're telling yourself you're fit, right? You may not feel it, but if you just tell yourself and tell your mind, hey, I am thinking from the person I want to become, and we'll get to this in a second: I am fit. I am athletic. I am strong. I am X, Y, and Z, whatever the type of goal is that you want to accomplish related to workouts. I am a good runner. Each time you do that, you are providing evidence of that new identity for yourself. You're providing evidence of who you are becoming.

So each habit not only gets you results, but also teaches you something far, far more important, you guys, which is to trust yourself. You start to believe that you can actually accomplish these things when you take action on accomplishing these things. So for me, for example, why I say this was literally the fastest way to achieve results for myself and to changing my body composition back eight years ago, when I started the true way of doing it, hired a coach, listened to the professional, and started taking action on what the professional was telling me to do.

I broke habits very fast and I created new habits because I was thinking from the person I want to become. And again, I'm going to get to that thinking from the person I want to become in a second. But then I started to be like, holy cow, this is how you build confidence in yourself. Something that you thought you couldn't do, and then you do do it, it's like, wow, I'm more confident in myself and I trust myself more to follow through. So I started trusting myself and I was like, holy cow, I can do this. And the narrative language in my brain was, you can do this.

And so if your mind is just on board with you in that aspect, and you're actually doing the daily actions to be that person that you want to become, that's your mental roadmap to success right there. If you tell yourself you can't, you won't. If you tell yourself you can, you will. And when you tell yourself you can, you'll take the actions necessary, again providing more evidence of the identity and person that you want to become. And then you start to believe that you actually can do these things. So then the votes add up and the evidence starts to change, right?

The votes are the actions that you take. And the evidence is that the small habits turn into, you're building these habits. That's where the evidence starts to change. And you see it, you feel this. You're like, wow, I am no longer skimping out on my workouts. I'm actually following through with the cadence that I told myself that I would follow through on. Or with nutrition: I actually eliminated the things that weren't serving me in my home, and now I'm choosing better things that do serve me for the person I want to become. So the evidence starts to change.

The votes add up. The evidence starts to change. You start seeing things within yourself, start feeling things within yourself that are more supportive of the progress that you want to see, on the roadmap you want to be on. The evidence starts to change, and the story you tell yourself begins to change as well. Because think about it: if you are in this new year and you're still in a cycle or pattern of last year's feelings towards your goals, well, you're just going to get more of the outcome of that. But if you're taking more action, the evidence starts to change.

You're then telling a better story to yourself because you're taking this action. You're showing up for yourself. And so you're like, again, to what I just said, I can do this.

But hold on, let me stop here for a second, because this is what I kind of just alluded to, but it also works the opposite way as well. Every time you choose to perform a bad habit, it's a vote for that identity. It's a vote for that old you. It's a vote for a pattern that you may be in that got you to where you felt the pain of needing to change and set a goal for yourself.

Right? So the good news, though, along this journey, and I've alluded to this in past podcasts, is you do not have to be perfect. Please, please, please know that you do not have to be perfect along your journey. You are going to fail. You're going to mess up. That is a part of it. It's okay. Don't mess up one day and then go, oh, I suck, and then go down this rabbit hole for five months, and then you're coming up on the new year next year, 2024.

And you're like, wow, I just stayed in the same pattern the whole year. No. You don't have to be perfect. Your goal this year, and this is what I love telling the women inside of WarriorBabe and the people that I've coached, is to simply win the majority of the time. So think about it like this. There's 52 weeks in a year. Let me pull up a calculator really quick. There's 52 weeks in a year. Let's say that you screw up 10 weeks of the year.

That's 42 weeks that you still have a chance to be on point. That's 80%. And 10 weeks is a long time, guys. That's a lot of weeks in a year. 80% though, that's still 80% of you showing up for yourself. You know what I mean? So you just have to win the majority of the time, even if you're inconsistent for 10 weeks of the year. And again, like I said, that's a good portion of a year. That's almost three months.

Or in between, like you go on vacation. One week doesn't screw you up. And I'll share this in a later podcast: one week doesn't screw you up, my friends. It's not going to set you off completely. It's if you turn it into 10 weeks after that, or more than that. Then yes, it will. But know that what I'm saying right here is your goal is to simply win the majority of the time. That's it.

So if you keep casting the same votes you've always cast, like I said, you're going to get the same results you've always had. If you're starting 2023 in the same mindset as how you ended 2022, guess what? You're going to get the same results. If nothing changes, nothing is going to change.

So I want to share with you some tactics that you can start implementing right now. Literally today, you guys. It's January, and you guys are starting to implement these things. But if you don't get this down, like I mentioned in podcast number one, the bottom of the iceberg is where success lives. It's not the tip of the iceberg, like the diets that you're going to be following and the workouts you're going to be doing.

It's: dude, is my mindset in check? And do I know who I'm working towards becoming as a human?

Hey, real quick. If you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand that methodology and how they can help you achieve your body composition goals of changing the way your body looks, I put together a free 15-minute training where I dive into macronutrients and how you can control your body for the rest of your life with them. That link is in the description below. Click on it after listening to the show today.

These are some questions that I want you to ask yourself, and then the actionable items that you can start doing right now, today.

Decide the type of person that you want to be. This is a fitness podcast, okay? So your goal this year is probably to change your body composition, decrease body fat. You have this vision of who you want to be, or maybe you don't have this vision, but you have the type of person that you want to be. You want to be more confident. You want to be stronger. You want to look how your personality feels, right? You're a strong person, but that doesn't show on the outside.

So you want to show that strong personality on the outside by having that body. Decide the type of person that you want to be. Decide that person. So who do you want to be? Who do you wish to become? And then I want you to ask yourself: who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want? Who is the type of person that could lose 40 pounds? Who is the type of person that could build 10 pounds of muscle? Okay, who is that person? Then, how does that person act?

Right? So think about the type of person you want to become. This is an important thing. That's your goal, right? For example, my goal at the beginning was all the things that I already alluded to. I saw these women on Instagram that had these strong bodies. They were competitors. So I made the goal of competing at the beginning of my journey. Now for me, it's just sustaining my results and living a lifestyle that I enjoy, where I'm not living like a competitor, but I have balance to it. So ask: who is the type of person I want to become? You have these goals of being fit, being strong, building muscle, and decreasing body fat.

I'm going to use that as an example; that's probably the majority of you. Now you have that. Who is that type of person? Who is the type of person that can get the outcome I want? Then, how does that person act? That's a branch off from that last question. So how does that person act? This one's really important, you guys. Really important to grasp. You have the first one: who am I becoming, or who do I wish to become? The goal, right? But how does that person act? Because this is how you're going to act in a second.

When you get off this podcast, for these future weeks, for this whole year. How does that person act? Think about it. The person you want to become, you're thinking about an end goal. You're thinking about an end-stage goal. That person's fit. That person's strong. That person has the body you want. That person's feeling confident. You're not there yet. So go to that end state in your mind. How is that person acting? What is that person doing on a day-to-day basis? What is that person saying to themselves?

As an example, to help you understand what I'm saying here: that person is someone who's consistent. That person has good time management. They're prioritizing their workouts. They're prioritizing their meal plans and their meal prep. They plan ahead. They get their workouts in. They're eating healthy. They're saying no to things that don't support them and saying yes to things that do. That's how that person acts. That person's saying nice things to themselves. Their narrative is strong. Their narrative is, I am confident. The narrative is, I can do this.

Okay? It's not the opposite. Because the opposite is probably what got you to where you are. And that's the old pattern of you. That's the old you. It's not the person who you're becoming. See the difference here? So this is where it's really important, you guys.

Number two: prove it to yourself by acting like the person you want to become. Everything we just said there in the example, you have to start acting like that person, because that person is the goal, who you want to become, right? That person is acting all of those ways. That person is not inconsistent the majority of the time. That person does not have bad time management.

That person does not say, oh, I can't get to the gym today because, or use the excuse multiple times that I'm too tired. That person is planning ahead. You know what I mean? Those are the things that got you to where you are, and you can't act that way to become the person you want to become. Or that person's saying negative things, like, I can't do this. Therefore you won't, right? So again, number two, you have to prove it to yourself, with something like the workouts.

If you have a set plan for four workouts this week, cool, go do those four workouts. And that's a small win. That's evidence to yourself of the person that you want to become, that you can do it. And so then start acting like that person. Like I'm saying, the workouts, or planning your meals, or speaking with confidence. Literally, you guys, this is the fastest way to achieve results. Yet, like I said, it's the hardest, because it's all mindset. And people don't realize that they are stuck in all these old patterns, and why they got to where they are.

It's because of this narrative in their head, or they're not prioritizing the things that are important to their goal. They're staying stuck in the old things that they were doing previously that got them to where they are. So you have the person you want to become. How does that person act? Then literally, you have to start acting like that person. I had the goal of wanting to have the body, right? And competing. I had to then pull the goal that I had into actionable items for me as a human on a daily basis. I was dedicated to my workouts.

I was dedicated to nutrition. All in the meantime, remember, you guys, I told you that I was in nursing school, I was taking care of my sick grandmother, I worked in the ER for a local hospital. I was doing all these things. I easily could have slipped into my old patterns of behavior, making excuses, not prioritizing time. But that's not in alignment with the goal that I had, what I shared with you. So I had to change that and do the right actions that were supportive of my goal.

So whatever right now, you have this New Year's goal, whatever right now is not serving you towards that person or the outcome that you want, you have to start changing. You have to start implementing new stories, new evidence, new actions for yourself. And this is how you do it. Who do you want to become? Prove it to yourself. The small wins daily, because it will all compound six to eight months from now, so that you're closing out the 12 months, the end of the year, really proud of where you're at and the progress. And you're either there, at who you wanted to become when you set this goal, or you're at least getting closer to it.

Okay, but it's all up to you to change the habits that just don't support you and put them into alignment with the habits that do support you. It's important that the principles and standards and behaviors of who you want to become drive the loop, rather than your results. Not forgetting about your goals, but focusing on the systems. This is a part of your system. We talked about this in earlier podcasts: forget about the goal, detach from it. This is a system that you have to start implementing for yourself in order to get there.

And it's a principle, it's a standard, it's a behavior of how you're going to get to where you want to be and who you want to be. And the focus should always be on becoming that type of person and not on getting the particular outcome. Because if you're just fed by the results, you're going to lose sight of all the habits you've built along the way.

Okay. So again, man, I just love talking and speaking to that. I love the mindset pillar that you have to understand, that's going to drive you to get to where you want to be. And it's one of the hardest, for the outcome of building muscle, changing your body composition, really anything in life. You have to take action. Actions will support the evidence of who you're trying to become. Then that's going to help you trust yourself a little bit more. And then watch: so much is going to change. You're going to look back, like me eight years later, and I'm like, holy shit, I can't even imagine acting the way that I did then, now. It's just not a part of who I am anymore. And that's just how you get better. You grow, you get to goals, to new achievements, to higher levels for yourself, to the next level.

So all in all, I hope you guys loved this podcast. If you did, screenshot it, upload it to your social story, tag WarriorBabe, tag Nikkiey Stott. I would love to see you guys and get feedback on how you loved this and are starting to put it into action. Please start putting it into action. That's all I ask. You can listen to me till you're blue in the face, but you're not going to get any results that way. You have to implement this stuff for yourself. So go do that. Go crush it. I hope 2023 is the best year for you.

And I'll see you guys in the next podcast.

Real quick: the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.