"Not everything is an identity problem. Sometimes the things we want to work on in our identities aren't problems at all. They're just things in life we would like to do a bit better."

-Melissa Sheffield

Everywhere you look right now, someone is telling you to become the woman who already has what you want, step into your next level identity and transform yourself until you are unrecognisable. In this episode, I take identity back to basics: what it actually is, when it's worth working on, and when the thing you're struggling with isn't an identity problem at all.

I explain why identity has become a social media buzzword, how squeezing years of subconscious and NLP work into 30 second clips skips the messy middle where the real change happens, and why advice has the potential to make things worse, depending on where you're starting from.

I walk you through the 6 NLP logical levels using the example of a self-employed woman who has left the nine to five but still feels stuck, so you can work out which level you actually need to work at.

I also talk about what we are really telling ourselves when we keep hearing that we need to become unrecognisable, and why, for a lot of us, it isn't who we are that needs to change but our situation.

Finally, I invite you to decide what success means to you so you are committing your time and energy to doing the work - at whatever level- that is right for you

Can we please stop talking about resetting everything?

Because when you reset something, you take it back to its factory settings. And I know none of us want to be a baby crying, waiting for somebody else to come along and save us. But as humans, THAT is our factory default setting.

- Melissa Sheffield

Clinical Hypnotherapist, NLP Practitioner and IEMT Practitioner

It's natural to want life to change things in life, and it's natural to feel nostalgic for simpler times as we mature and responsibilities increase.

In this episode, I talk about why I'm sick of so many influencers talking about the need to 'reset' constantly, and what we are really training our brains to think when we are telling ourselves to delete everything we've learnt in life. I invite you to think about adaption instead, and walk you through how this mentality is likely to set you up for success.

"If the main thing driving your life is always going to be "anything but that",

you could spend all your life and all your energy just getting further away from some things you don't want, without ever getting closer to something that you do want."

- Melissa Sheffield

There's a difference between wanting something because you're genuinely drawn towards it and wanting something because you're desperate to avoid what happens if you don't get it. In this episode, I'm looking at towards and away motivation, why both matter, and what happens when the thing driving your decisions is fear of going backwards rather than clarity about where you're actually headed.

I share my own experience with this, break down the psychology behind approach and avoidance motivation, and talk about how your subconscious beliefs, your attention and your nervous system can all be organised around the wrong thing without you realising it. I also walk through my Shift, Step, See framework and how it helps you move from knowing what you want to actually building a life that reflects it.