Are you doing really well technically? OK, you have skills and abilities that allow you to do what it is that you've trained to do, but you still feel something's wrong. You feel that you're not cutting it. I understand that feeling all too well, not only in my own life, but in the lives of everybody that I'm working with right now around the world, and it's got nothing to do with your skills.

Over the last month or so, we've been talking about these nine crucial shifts that everybody in professional services needs to make, particularly right now in this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world that we are living in. The speed of change is so fast, there's conflict everywhere, and this can affect the way that you feel about yourself.

As you know, I work in three areas within your leadership. And yes, you're a leader even if you don't have a team, because the first area is your personal leadership, and that's what I want to talk about this month.

I want to help you to understand that the first shift that you need to make is to go from feeling conflicted about who you are [your identity], to feeling congruent, authentic, and okay with who you are and who you are becoming. Because friends, that is the foundation of everything else that we do.

Your identity is not just who you believe you are, it's who you believe you're not, and that can create a lot of self-doubt. You can be hard on yourself. Your self-talk can be very unhealthy, and I know that most people agree with me, that the most difficult person that you need to lead on a daily basis is you. Because you know you and you understand you and you know what it is that you're afraid of, that you are trying to avoid, that you're running away from.

Now, I might sound like I'm being a little bit deep this month and I am, and I'm going to continue to do that without making any apology. And here's why. You can get all the other shifts where they need to be, but without this one, it'll be head knowledge that you won't implement to its fullest value. You know, I made decisions around who I thought I was for years that held me back, created unhealthy unresourceful behaviour that meant my technical skills weren't good enough. They weren't going to get me to where I needed to go. Relationships were not good and in fact, a lot of them were broken because of how I was dealing, or not dealing with what was going on inside. So, if you're a little bit like me and you think, oh no, this fluffy stuff, I don't want to talk about this, I want to get into the real meaty stuff. I understand that, but I also, as the leader of this journey we're taking together, know that if I let you off I let you down. If I fail to step up, then you're going to miss out on your full potential, not just this year, but in the years to come.

Every single person on the planet operates out of three universal fears. The fear of not belonging, the fear of not being enough, and the fear of not being loved. Everything that you do comes out of you subconsciously wanting to avoid those fears. That's the reason why we get stuck in the approval addiction, because we're trying to please everybody else. I have people all the time tell me that they have a problem saying no, and I help them understand, no, that's not the case. You have a priority problem.

Because every time that you say yes to something out of obligation, or to get approval from someone else, you're saying no to your own priorities. We need to get you back to a position where you're okay with who you are and who you're becoming. Not perfect, none of us are, and I'm far from it, but teachable and humble and knowing your strengths and the areas that you're continuing to work on and being okay with who you are instead of trying to please everybody else on the planet.

I know that there are heads nodding right now as people are watching this. Why? Because it's part of the human condition and you are not what you do. You are a human being. You see, when you make your identity, and that's what we're talking about today, when you make your identity what you do, that's all you become and that's why you're not able to separate from it when you go home over night time because you go, that's who I am. No, that's what you do.

Who you are comes out of a deeper understanding of your identity, what you were born for, what it is that you believe you're here to achieve, and then the outworking of that, a journey of imperfection as I call it, incrementally going from where you are to where you need to be so that you can do the things you need to do to have the results that you want.

So, I'm going to devote a lot of time this year in not just laying this foundation now, but showing you in those other shifts how this foundation actually can help you to make the shift, and how a lack of this foundation will hold you back. That inner dialogue that you have that's probably whispering to you right now, saying, let's not listen to this guy. He doesn't know what he's talking about. We are doing great just the way we are. And that lie is going to keep you safe, so you think, but in reality, it's going to hold you back. It's going to produce behaviour that will be a roadblock in the way of you being able to bring out your personal best, be who you can be with the gifts and talents that you have.

So we're going to learn to shift that dialogue, reprogram your thinking, and rewire your brain. We're going to leave behind some of the experiences in the past that you are still carrying the weight of. I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm going to help you to understand how my journey went and how I was carrying that weight and how I let it go, and hopefully by me not worrying about what you think about me but just wanting to serve you, you're going to get something out of that. You see, vulnerability is a strength, it's not a weakness, and I'm going to help you to shift that self-doubt, to build up that confidence. Not a false bravado confidence that says, yeah, I'm doing okay, when really you're not. No, something that just flows and comes easily and effortlessly rather than being exhausting.

So what is it that you want to shift in your identity? What are the thoughts and behaviours that you know are not serving you right now? I want you to think about this week and those of you who are in our professional services leadership community, you can join us tomorrow where I will give you some more help with this.

Every two weeks we run a 20 Minute Transformation where I just grab you for 20 minutes online with some other people and I give you a little bit of a teaching and then help you to implement that and make one shift. So, if you haven't already, I invite you to get involved in that community so that you have access to those as well.

So somewhere around wherever you're watching this video, there's going to be an opportunity for you to do that.

YOU are enough. YOU do belong, and YOU are loved. I'll see you in the next training.