How to Become the Kind of Person Who…
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re feeling somewhere between frustrated and stuck, and hopeful but uncertain. You want to move forward, to become “the kind of person who…” whatever your aspiration happens to be. Maybe it’s about health, fitness, and nutrition. Maybe it’s about your professional journey, or your relationships, or simply the way you show up in the world. But right now? You’re not sure how to get there.
I want to pause here and say: that’s normal. Really normal.
Even as a coach and trainer who spends much of my life thinking, teaching, and writing about this stuff, I still find myself in that same space. I can know all the things and still be subject to the same very human struggles. My own training, my nutrition, the ups and downs of running a business, my role as a husband and father, and my place in society at large…none of these are exempt from moments where I feel like I should have it figured out by now, yet I don’t.
Knowing the tools doesn’t magically remove the challenge of picking them up and using them.
So let’s take a breath together. You’re not behind, you’re not broken, and you’re not alone in this. Wanting to change doesn’t mean you’ve failed. In fact, it’s often the most powerful signal that you’re ready to step into something new.
Which brings us to the first crucial point.
Self-Love and the Permission to Change
There’s a pervasive idea floating around that if you love yourself, you shouldn’t want to change. That self-love means acceptance, and acceptance means staying exactly as you are.
But here’s the truth: you can love yourself and want to change. One doesn’t preclude the other.
This is an important part of the messaging for me, because I’ve seen too many people get stuck in the trap of thinking that change implies self-rejection. It doesn’t. If anything, it’s the opposite. You can accept your worth as a human being and still desire growth, evolution, or transformation.
Alongside this idea, I often return to a line from Mackenzi Lee’s The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy:
“It is not a failure to readjust my sails to fit the waters I find myself in.”
That resonates deeply. Loving yourself doesn’t mean staying anchored in the same harbour forever. It means recognising the value of your ship, and then adjusting the sails as needed to continue your voyage.
Giving yourself permission to change is the first step in becoming the kind of person you want to be. It’s not about rejecting your current self. It’s about saying, “I deserve to grow. I deserve to explore what else is possible for me.”
If this resonates, you might also want to revisit an earlier piece I wrote: The “I Always Mess This Up” Identity Loop (and How to Break It). That article explores how the stories we tell ourselves about failure can become self-fulfilling, and how rewriting those stories is central to giving ourselves permission to change.
And once that door is open, we can talk about the beliefs and narratives that either help or hinder us on the journey.
Breaking Down the Tropes
Let’s address two of the oldest self-improvement tropes out there: fake it till you make it and if you can see it, you can be it.
At first glance, these might seem like the same idea. But look closer, and you’ll notice they operate on very different levels.
“Fake it till you make it” is framed in the wrong way. It’s about pretending, about putting on a mask. And here’s the problem: you can “fake it” with others, but you can’t fake it with yourself. If you walk into a new habit, role, or identity with the internal story that you’re just pretending, it becomes much harder to develop the belief necessary to stick with it long-term. Deep down, you’ll keep thinking, “That’s not really me, I’m just faking this.”
That creates a fragile foundation. When the first setback comes, the mask slips.
On the other hand, “if you can see it, you can be it” leans closer to what we actually want. It’s about creating a vision of yourself as that “kind of person who…” and reinforcing it in your mind. That vision can help inspire and guide your daily actions towards the identity you’re trying to build.
And reinforcement doesn’t only happen in your head. Sure, visualisation exercises or guided meditations can help, but the stronger reinforcements are the small, daily actions that align with your desired identity. Every time you act in congruence with who you want to become, you strengthen the internal dialogue that says, “This is who I am.”
When faced with a choice, you can ask: “What would I choose if I were already that person?”
James Clear puts it succinctly:
“People generally have more control over their actions than their feelings.
But we can influence our feelings by taking action.
Take one small step. Move the body first and the mind will follow.”
That’s identity in action.
But we also need to make an important distinction here. Vision is powerful. Delusion is not.
There’s a growing cultural trend around manifesting—the idea that if you want something badly enough, you can “attract the universe” to deliver it.
I need to be blunt: this is delusional thinking.
Positive change, never mind success, doesn’t happen without decisions and doing.
Though I’m not religious myself, it reminds me of the old saying that “God helps those who help themselves.” Whatever you believe, the principle holds.
Or as Mark Hurd put it:
“Without execution, ‘vision’ is just another word for hallucination.”
This is where so many people get stuck. They either fake it until they feel like frauds, or they visualise endlessly without ever taking a meaningful step.
The way forward is to hold onto the vision, but anchor it in consistent, executable action.
The Practical Process: Four Steps to Becoming That Person
So how do we move from vision to reality?
I’ve found it helpful to frame the process in four broad steps. None of them are complicated. They are, however, challenging in practice.
1. Give Yourself Permission
We’ve touched on this already, but it bears repeating: you don’t love yourself any less because you want something different. Change does not negate self-acceptance.
Think of it as a conversation with yourself. You’re saying, “I value who I am, and I also value who I could become.” That mindset shift is what opens the door. Without it, you’re stuck trying to grow from a place of shame or rejection, which rarely works.
2. Vividly Envision
Once you’ve granted yourself permission, try to vividly envision yourself as the kind of person you want to be.
What do you say—to yourself and to others?
What do you hear—both in your own head and from those around you?
What do you feel in your body, in your emotions?
What do you do on a day-to-day basis?
Make it real enough in your imagination that it feels like a place you can step into.
One practical tool I often recommend is recording a guided visualisation in your own voice. You can use AI tools to help draft a script, then record it with an app. Listening to your own voice guiding you through that future can be a surprisingly powerful reinforcement.
I first experienced the value of this myself in working with Ian Priest of Clinical Sports Hypnosis as part of my own journey. That work showed me just how much our subconscious can support us when we feed it clear, empowering messages. Taking that a step further and recording my own voice (layered with the techniques my experience with Ian taught me) created a depth of connection that was hard to replicate in any other way. It wasn’t about tricking myself into belief, it was about reinforcing identity through repetition, imagery, and action.
3. Start with One Small, Consistent Action
This is where the rubber meets the road. Pick one small behaviour change that you’re eight or nine out of ten confident you can execute successfully. Then do it. Every day, or every week, whatever the cadence is—do it consistently until it becomes part of your normal.
That usually takes somewhere between two and four weeks. Once it’s in place, add the next step. Repeat the process.
It sounds simple, and in one sense it is. But it’s also profoundly difficult, because consistency rarely feels heroic.
James Clear captures it perfectly:
“Greatness is consistency.
Meditating once is common. Meditating daily is rare.
Exercising today is simple. Training every week is simply remarkable.
Writing one essay rarely matters. Write every day and you’re practically a hero.
Unheroic days can make for heroic decades.”
That’s the work. Not the flashy bursts of motivation, but the steady drumbeat of daily, unremarkable actions.
4. Expect Detours and Learn From Them
Along the way, you will discover that some things don’t work for you. That’s totally OK. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed, it means you’re learning.
The journey to becoming “the kind of person who…” is almost never linear. You will take steps forward, yes, but there will also be steps sideways, backwards, and sometimes even complete changes of direction. That’s not a flaw in the process—it is the process.
We often imagine growth as a straight line, steadily climbing upward. In reality, it looks more like a scribble. Some days you’ll feel like you’re on top of things, other days like you’re sliding back down the hill you just climbed. What matters isn’t whether every step goes the “right” way, but whether you keep moving, adjusting, and paying attention to what each experience is teaching you.
A skipped workout, a week where nutrition feels like a mess, a habit you can’t seem to nail down—none of these mean you’ve blown it. They mean you’re human. And being human is not an obstacle to growth; it’s the very context in which growth happens.
Sometimes, what feels like a wrong turn is actually a lesson in disguise. You might realise that a strategy you thought would be perfect doesn’t fit your lifestyle. You might learn that a habit you thought would be simple is actually draining, while another one you hadn’t considered feels surprisingly natural. Each of these discoveries is information you can use to refine your path forward.
As James Clear puts it:
“You have to work hard to discover how to work smart. You won’t know the best solutions until you’ve made nearly all the mistakes.”
So when you catch yourself drifting, stumbling, or even starting over entirely, remember this: THAT’S TOTALLY OK. The key is not to view those moments as failures, but as inevitable parts of the process of becoming.
The question to ask yourself is not “Did I stay perfectly on track?” but rather, “What did I learn, and how can I use that to take my next step?”
Consistency isn’t about never making mistakes. It’s about continuing to show up, adjust, and move forward.
If you’d like to dive deeper into this idea, I’d encourage you to read another article in our series: Consistency Over Chaos: What Actually Builds Fitness That Lasts. That piece explores why consistency almost always beats intensity, and why small steps executed regularly have a far bigger long-term impact than sporadic bursts of effort. It applies to training, nutrition, work, relationships…pretty much everything. Definitely give it a read if you haven’t already.
Hope, Belief, and Action
So let’s bring this home.
Becoming the kind of person who does the things you aspire to do isn’t about pretending, or wishing, or waiting for the universe to deliver. It’s about permission, vision, action and adaptability.
First, give yourself permission to change. Recognise that wanting more doesn’t mean you love yourself less.
Second, create a vision of who you want to become. Make it real enough that it can guide your choices in the present.
Third, act. Choose one small behaviour you can sustain, and do it consistently. Then build from there.
And Fourth, expect detours. There will be setbacks, sideways steps, and even times you feel like you’re starting over. That’s totally OK. What matters is not flawless progress, but the willingness to learn, adjust, and keep moving forward.
Change is possible. Not because it’s easy, but because you are capable of aligning your actions with the identity you’re building. And over time, those unheroic days add up.
It’s never too late to begin, and never too late to grow.
I’ll leave you with this:
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
—George Eliot
Wherever you are today, you have permission to take that next step.
And if you’re not sure where to start? Start small. Start NOW.
For more on navigating the inevitable setbacks, you might also want to read: How to Talk to Yourself When You Mess Up. It digs into the power of self-talk and how quickly recovering from mistakes is one of the most underrated skills in personal growth.
Reflection Prompts
To bring this closer to home, take a few minutes with these questions:
What’s one area of your life where you feel stuck or uncertain right now?
How do you talk to yourself about change? Does it feel like permission, or like rejection?
If you gave yourself permission to evolve, what “kind of person who…” would you like to become?
What’s one small, concrete action you feel at least 8/10 confident you could start this week to move toward that vision?
How will you remind yourself that consistency, not perfection, is what builds the new identity?
Write down your answers, revisit them often, and let them guide your next step.