How to Release Your Limiting Identities and Accelerate

Too often we are stamping on the accelerator with the handbrake on.

Daniel Kahneman

Instead of believing “You can be anything you want to be,” try the opposite:

“You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.”

Based on my experience, this is one of the most practical realizations you can make. Because the limiting identities that come with being someone you don’t have to be are like handbrakes: they drag you back from driving toward you life goals.

But, if you release them, you can accelerate forward in life faster than ever.

Quit Pushing So Hard

Willpower is not the answer. Self-image management is.

Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics

We’re taught to tolerate our self-limiting identities. Nobody’s perfect, right?

So, to overcome them, we push harder on the accelerator. But that takes willpower. And while some of us may have bigger willpower reserves than others, nobody’s is bottomless.

What do you do when willpower runs low?

You burn out, crash, and end up parked on your coach watching The Bachelor in Paradise and eating Ben & Jerry’s waiting for your willpower to replenish.

Or, maybe not. Maybe you seek out an outside power supply in the form of external motivation—a coach, a cohort course, a public commitment to create social pressure, or an accountability buddy. But while these may keep you moving, you aren’t getting to the source of the issue:

Your handbrake’s still on.

Release it. Then you’ll be able to motivate yourself to get rolling without nearly as much willpower.

Self-Diagnose Your Handbrakes

Our minds are mega-complicated machines and most of us aren’t mental mechanics, so even though we feel limiting identities holding us back, they’re not always easy to find, let alone release.

The best diagnostic tools I’ve found are the following questions from Carol Dweck, the author of the “sledgehammer” book, Mindset (my book summary and refresher):

• When do you react defensively to criticism or feel angry or crushed from feedback?
• When do you make excuses?
• When do you feel envious or threatened by someone, rather than motivated by their success?
• When have you said, “I’m not very good at ______” or “I’m really good at ______”?

Your answers will point you toward limiting identities to release.

Or ask people who know you well and want the best from you.

Quit The Status Game

Can you find a commonality among each of the above diagnostic questions—and the answers you may have come up with?

They’re all about your status relative to others.

For instance:

• You’re only smart if other people are dumber than you.
• You’re only cute if others have been hit harder with the ugly stick.
• You’re only too old for something if others are younger than you.
• You’re only liberal if others are more conservative than you.

Relativeness is what make these identities limiting. Because, no matter how “special” you think you are, if you compare yourself to others the competition will be too stiff to have any hope of winning at life.

Replace Identities With Qualities

Once you’ve diagnosed that that you’re being held back by some limiting identity, how do you release it?

You could try positive affirmations, hypnosis, or heroic doses of psychedelics. When those don’t do the trick, try this:

Find intrinsic qualities to focus on reinforcing through your actions.

By that, I mean qualities you can constantly improve and work on with others, rather than compete over:

• Curious instead of smart.
• Friendly instead of cute.
• Young-at-heart instead of old.
• Actively open-minded instead of liberal.

There is no upper limit to these qualities so, unlike handbrakes, they don’t slow you down.

Use Self-Justification to Your Advantage

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

Self-justification is a double edged sword. Most people hurt themselves with it, but if you familiarize yourself with it and wield it carefully, you do some real positive damage to your limiting identities.

In theory, it’s simple:

Act in ways that are inconsistent with your limiting self-identities but consisten with the qualities you want to develop.

In my post on how to stop lying to yourself and making excuses is, I use this example: If you think you’re lazy and unmotivated, but like to be playful and care-free, pretend you’re David Goggins. Tap into your limited willpower reserves, and go do some crazy outdoor workout.

Doing so will trigger cognitive dissonance between two realities:

• Reality 1: “I’m an unmotivated, lazy softie.”
• Reality 2: “I had a wild time working out in the rain like a badass.”

This will cause discomfort to your coddled, consistency-needing identity and calls in your overprotective ego to the rescue. Your ego will try to excuse away Reality 2 with something like, “You only worked out like crazy this one time because an awesome blog post tricked you into it.”

If you swallow that excuse, you’ll need just as much willpower the next time. But if you reject it and focus on your playfulness, your ego will find a way to excuse away Reality 1, “See? You’re not as much of a lazy, unmotivated baby as you thought.”

Take that to heart, and your handbrakes will loosen slightly. Next time, you’ll need less willpower than previously. And even less the third time.

Soon enough, you may even identify as “a lunatic who enjoys crazy workouts.” At that point, your handbrake will have magically metamorphosed into a battery. You’ll feel bad when you can’t go out to do one.

It’s not easy, but hey, if it were easy we’d all be smiling with our six-packs while doing sprints in the rain.

Take Your Time

As long as your limiting identities took to tighten around you, they’ll take just as much time to loosen up.

To overcome your impatience, ask yourself this:

In what ways has your identity changed in the past ten years?

You can probably come up with a few big changes. I sure can for myself.

So you can expect the same in the coming ten years. And why let fate, happenstance, or luck decide what those changes will be? What if you take control, identifying and releasing limiting identities and focusing on accelerating qualities instead?

A handful of years from now, I bet you’d really be on a roll.

Get Started

Hone in on a single limiting identity to release and find an accelerating quality to focus on instead. Then fill in the blanks:

I don’t need to believe I’m ________ anymore. I will act more ________ instead.

And enjoy the ride.