You Have to Be It Before You Feel Like It

There’s a version of you that you keep thinking about.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about her for months. Maybe years. She’s more disciplined, more consistent, more confident. She shows up. She follows through. She’s built the thing you keep saying you’re going to build.

Here’s what no one tells you about her: she doesn’t arrive when you’re ready. She arrives when you decide. (I wrote this in a she/her voice, but please insert your own pronouns as you see fit.)

I’ve done this twice in ways that still surprise me when I think about them.

The first time was when I launched The Literary Assistant. I didn’t have it all figured out. I didn’t have a full roster of clients or a proven system or the certainty that it would work. I had a name, a mission, and a decision to show up as that person — the literary assistant, the one who helps authors find their voice and readers find their books — and grow into it.

The second time was when I started teaching Barre and Pilates classes.

I stood in front of a room full of people and taught. Not because I felt like an instructor yet. Because I decided to be one. I’m still working on the feeling. The identity came first.

Something I think we need to highlight more is that you can’t wait until you feel ready. You act like the person you’re becoming and eventually, you look up and realize you’ve become your new identity.

Here’s where most of us get stuck.

We live in one of two places… I wish I was or I’m going to be. It feels productive and like you are making progress, but you aren’t

I wish I was more consistent. Your brain hears… I am not consistent. I’m going to be someone who shows up every day. Your brain hears… I don’t show up every day yet.

Your body and your brain respond to the identity you’re currently living, not the one you’re aspiring toward. Every time you frame yourself as someone who isn’t… not yet disciplined enough, not yet ready, not yet the real thing… you reinforce exactly the identity you’re trying to leave behind.

The shift happens when you stop wishing and start living the destination.

James Clear puts it plainly in Atomic Habits… “every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become.” Not a guarantee. A vote. You don’t get a total transformation on day one. You need to start casting votes in the right direction.

As a reader you don’t wait until you have a beautiful reading nook and two hours of uninterrupted silence. You reads for ten minutes at the kitchen table while the coffee brews. Every morning you vote for the identity… I am someone who reads every day.

A writer doesn’t wait until she feels inspired. She opens the document. She writes something imperfect. She votes.

As someone who wants a healthy lifestyle, you don’t wait until you can get in the perfect workout when you don’t have time. You do leg lifts in the kitchen while you cook. You park father out in the parking lot to get your steps in. You skip the late night junk food binge. You vote.

The habits aren’t the path to the identity. The habits are the identity, one small repeated action at a time telling your brain you who are.

Something shifts when you stop waiting and start acting like her.

Opportunities appear that weren’t visible before,,, not because the world changed, but because you did. When you carry yourself as someone who has something to offer, people start to see it. When you show up consistently as the version of yourself you’re building toward, doors open that you couldn’t even see when you were standing in the I wish I was space.

Do this, and you will be happier.

Not because everything is figured out. Not because the work is done or the goal is reached. But because there is a particular kind of peace that comes from living in alignment with who you actually want to be. The friction of pretending to be comfortable with a smaller version of yourself is exhausting in ways you don’t fully notice until it’s gone.

I’ll be honest with you, because that’s the only way I know how to do this.

I am in the middle of my own identity shift right now. Several of them, actually.

I’m stepping out from behind The Literary Assistant brand here on Substack and into my own name so I can share more. That’s not a small thing. A business name was my safe space. My own name is just... me. Unscripted. Out there. Sharing my thought with you.

And this past year, grief has quietly dismantled and rebuilt parts of me I didn’t even know needed rebuilding. You don’t get to choose which parts of you survive it unchanged. You just get to decide what you do with who you are on the other side.

So I’m figuring out what’s out there for me. Still. I don’t have the full picture yet. But I’m not waiting for it before I start living it.

You don’t need a dramatic moment. You need a small, repeated decision. Ask yourself: Who is the person I am trying to become?

Not the goal. The person. What does she do every day? How does she carry herself? What habits does she have that you don’t have yet?

Now pick one. Just one. And start doing it… not as practice, not as a trial run, not as “seeing if it sticks.” Do it as her. Do it because that’s who you are now.

Cast the vote. Then cast it again tomorrow. The identity you’re building is already in there. Your habits are just how you prove it to yourself, first. To the world, eventually.

You don’t have to feel like her yet. You just have to start acting like her.

Are you in the middle of an identity shift right now? Building a new version of yourself, stepping into something that doesn’t quite feel real yet? I’d love to hear where you are in it…share in the comments below.