By Dina Aldabbagh

The thing about identity is that we typically use the past as a way to identify ourselves rather than the present. We use yesterday’s emotions as the structure for how we should feel today. We use last year’s events as the evidence for how things go for us. We use childhood trauma as the foundation for what our baseline is. Rather than looking at today as a new thing, we assume it as the continuation of all of our yesterdays. 

It wasn’t always like this though — there was a first for everything. There was a first time your phone died on a plane — so you started bringing a portable charger. There was a first time you were hungry on the way home — so you started leaving an emergency granola bar in your purse. There was a first time your heart was broken — so you started armoring up and verifying if things were safe before you softened into vulnerability.

The cycle we find ourselves in when you always identify ourselves by the past is that we loop around and recreate it. It’s been a long time since someone publicly made a condescending comment to you, and yet you brace every time you’re speaking in a group. It’s natural to learn from the past. Bringing a portable charger is a smart idea. The issue comes when our past hurts become the skeletal structure within which we identify ourselves, and therefore continue looking at the past to create the present. 

You can’t become a stronger, healthier, happier version of yourself if you’re maintaining all the same habits, emotions, and coping mechanisms of the version of you that you want to stop being. You have to change. In order for you to change, your behaviors need to change. All the things that make you up — like one’s chemical makeup — must become something else. And the vital understanding we often miss is that on an atomic level, the way you think is the most critical behavior of all in regards to what makes you up as a person. 

And here’s where the difficulty lies: there is a lag. The moment you do something is not the moment you see the result. Things take time and our personal power lies in the ability to be in high spirits as we practice patience rather than allowing fear and doubt to overtake our emotional state. Oftentimes, we do something, make some kind of change, and then immediately look at the world to see if it’s had an effect. This can get us down and deter us from staying consistent…resulting in definitely not getting the result we want. But when you can be patient in high spirits, you can endure long enough to see the results. 

When you’re losing weight, you have to trust the process. The day you eat in a 500 calorie deficit is not the same day your waist visibly shrinks. You have to eat in a 500 calorie deficit consistently for seven days to lose one pound — which isn’t even really visible. You have to lose numerous pounds for it to begin showing — for you to see a difference. That’s probably weeks of consistency before you even notice a change. But the key is: you are losing weight, even if you don’t see it immediately. The process is working, even if it’s not obviously visible. 

When you make a change, know that it’s working. You must forget who you are currently and remember who you are currently being. Understand that who you are today — as in, the version of yourself you see today — is a result of who you have been. Who you are being in this exact moment cannot create the version of you who has already been created — it’s creating the version of you in the future. 

The mindset, behaviors, and perspectives you are practicing in this moment is what creates the version of you tomorrow. Think of it like this: your current body is the physical manifestation of your diet from this last month. Your body in one month will be the physical manifestation of your diet this month. Last month’s diet is this month’s body — and this is true in all regards. In school, the grades you currently have for a class are not the results of the way you are studying for the exam coming up this week, those grades are reflective of how you studied for the past tests. Your current reality is reflective of what you have been doing, not what you’re doing right now. It is the future that will reflect who you are being right now.

So don’t look at the current state of things to identify yourself, look at who you are currently being. Who you are in this moment — everything you’re doing — is the best indicator for how things will be for you. We injure ourselves when we assume things will turn out how they always have. That will only happen if you are being who you have always been. 

“Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again” (NIV 14:13). That is to say: the things that you see today in your life that you do not like are temporary, if you allow them to be. If you stand firm in who you are being and continue to be that person even when things look like they’re leading to nothing, you will soon see the visible difference. If you choose to make the metric of success not what you see as a result, but what you do, then you know the results are inevitable. 

He who likes to walk gets further than he who likes to get far. If you learn to love walking, then getting far is inevitable. If you learn to love being the person you wish to be, then the results of that person are absolutely inevitable. If you learn to love eating healthy, proportionate meals, then a well-functioning, lean body is inevitable. It must happen as a result of who you are being — eventually. Maybe you won’t see it today or tomorrow or next month, but keep being that person and you will see it. You must simply know that anything that you still see today that doesn’t look like the kind of result you want is just temporary. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again — but you have to stand firm. You have to stabilize in the identity of the way you’re currently acting, and be unmoved by the way you and your life currently look. And “stabilize” means nothing more than be consistent. 

When you are trying to change, the way you identify yourself should be solely based on today. Otherwise you risk getting discouraged that things still look how they always have and you risk still identifying with that version of things. Know this: your identity is not the sum of your current evidence — the current circumstances of your life — but rather your identity is the sum of who you are currently being. Reality lags. Things take time because they must undergo a process. The current “evidence” that you’re basing your entire identity around? That’s the echo of the past. It only becomes the future if you keep doing the same things and assuming the same identity.

It takes one lightyear for the light from the sun to reach the earth — that’s 8 minutes 20 seconds. So even the speed of light — the fastest metric known to man — lags. The light you see right now is the light the sun gave off 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago. If light itself is “late” 8 minutes, and that is the fastest thing in our universe, how much longer can you give yourself to undergo the necessary process to make things visible?

Are you competing with light? With the sun? There may be a felt pressure to make things happen immediately, but acceptance of the time things take to go through the processes they need is what will take you so far in life. Patience can be a learned skill. I think it’s okay to be someone who likes to go fast — who’s geared toward decisive action and refuses to let doubt or fear make them hesitate and therefore likes to see fast results. Actually I think it’s a huge skill. But this quality calls for a necessary balance: the ability to stay consistent while you wait to see results. 

You can’t let your love for speed get you discouraged. Peaceful patience is one of the strongest signals for success and indicates a person who is so grounded, composed, and strong. It takes self mastery to stay still when all you want to do is move — let the monks confirm. If you can stay firm in what you’re doing — i.e. be consistent — even when you see no results, you will get everything you want out of life. There’s just inevitability to some actions. If you do the right things, the right things inevitably eventually happen. 

No one is asking you to go at the speed of light. When you feel the urge to get discouraged that you’re not seeing the results you want, just remember that everything you currently see is temporary. What’s creating the next thing is who you are being in this moment. When discouragement wants to roar, it’s helpful to forget the current state of things and only dwell on the current behaviors you’re doing. That’s your predictor. If you want a prophecy for the future, don’t look to how things are or have been, but what you’re doing in this moment.