Step 1 of 4

What is the main thing that gives you your sense of identity?

Think about what comes to mind when someone asks "what do you do?" or "tell me about yourself." It could be your job, your family role, your faith, your achievements — whatever feels like the biggest piece of your identity right now.

Step 2 of 4

What group or community are you part of because of that?

When you think about that thing you just named — there are people that come with it. A team, a congregation, a family unit, a social circle. What is the group or community that surrounds it?

Step 3 of 4

What do you DO to belong to that group?

Every group has unspoken rules. Things you do to stay in good standing, to keep your place, to prove you belong. What are the things you do — the effort, the hours, the performance — to keep that identity?

Step 4 of 4

So who does all of that make you?

After all the effort, the showing up, the performing — what is the label you walk away with? How do you finish the sentence "I am ____" because of all that?

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The Shift

Same words. Completely different starting point.

You just described how you get your identity from the outside in. Now see what happens when you flip it and start from the inside out.

1

Not because of what you do. Just because of who you are.

2

Not because you have to. Because it matches who you already are.

3

You bring something real to that group. Because of who you are, not just what you do.

4

It does not make you who you are. You bring who you are to it.

Something to sit with

When you start from who you are — not what you do — something shifts. The effort does not go away. The groups do not disappear. But they stop being the thing that holds your identity together. They become places where you get to show up as yourself. That is what it feels like to live from the inside out.

The Identity Paradigm is not about expectation. It is about expression. When I start from I Am, I give expression to my identity.

Want to explore this further?

Visit www.ccstoday.com, email brenton@ccsdiscover.com, or call 417-881-9800