We live in a world that constantly tells us what to do. Work harder. Set bigger goals. Develop better habits. Make more money. Improve your relationships.
But after more than forty years of working with people in personal-growth seminars, business settings and private coaching, I’ve come to believe something different:
You don’t get what you want. You get who you are.
Think about a computer. A computer cannot outperform the software installed on it. You can have beautiful hardware, tremendous processing power and enormous potential, but if the computer is running old or corrupted software, its performance will always be limited by the programs operating underneath. Human beings are not that different.
We all have software. Our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, expectations and the stories we tell ourselves become programs that influence how we experience life. And some of that software was installed a very long time ago.
We may consciously want success while unconsciously running software that says, I’m not good enough. We may want a loving relationship while carrying an old belief that says, People I love eventually leave me. We may want financial abundance while running software that tells us, People like me don’t become wealthy.
Then we wonder why working harder doesn’t always change the result.
The problem may not be what you are doing. The problem may be the software underneath what you are doing. This is why I believe personal transformation begins with observation rather than judgment.
Ask your self-critic to step back and take a break. Begin observing what old, inefficient or outdated software may be running in your life. Learn to observe yourself without judging yourself.
You can improve your life without berating, abusing or criticizing yourself. In fact, self-acceptance gives you a much clearer place from which to change. I learned this lesson personally.
I began acting professionally as a child and continued for approximately twenty years. During my acting career, I appeared in more than 150 television episodes and several films. From the outside, that looked like success. But underneath that success was another story.
When I was young, I had a friend named Vincent. Vincent was an amazing artist and a very talented actor. I admired him, but comparing myself to him also contributed to a feeling that I wasn’t quite good enough. Consequently I tried to become good at acting.
There was nothing wrong with wanting to improve. The problem was the motivation underneath it. Part of me was trying to use achievement to prove that I was good enough. This is an important distinction. Sometimes people accomplish extraordinary things while operating from a negative paradigm: I’m going to prove that I’m good enough through my success.
The problem is that after the goal has been achieved, the original belief can still be there. You get the promotion. You make the money. You receive the applause. You win the award.
And eventually that old feeling whispers again: But am I good enough? Once again, you need another accomplishment. And then another. The real transformation begins when we stop trying to do enough to prove our worth and begin changing who we are being. That’s what I mean by updating your software.
Start asking yourself: What am I believing about myself in this area of my life that I want to improve? What am I saying to myself? What old conclusions am I still carrying? Is the software I’m running today actually creating the life I want?
If the answer is no, you don’t have to condemn yourself for installing it. Some of your beliefs were created when you were very young. Some came from your family. Some came from painful experiences. Some may have protected you at another point in your life.
Software that once served you can become outdated. Your phone regularly asks you to update its software. Imagine refusing every update for ten years. Eventually applications wouldn’t work correctly. The phone might slow down. New programs might not even run.
Yet human beings can spend decades running beliefs they installed when they were five, eleven or sixteen years old. You have something a computer doesn’t have: the ability to consciously examine your programming.
You can ask, Is this still true for me? Does this belief still serve me? Who would I be without it? What would I choose to believe now? You can update. And perhaps the most important update is realizing that your value does not come from what you accomplish. You are a human being, not a human doing.
When you begin changing who you are being—how you see yourself, how you speak to yourself, what you believe you deserve and what you believe is possible—your actions begin changing naturally.
And different actions create different results. You don’t get what you want. You get who you are. So if you want to change your life, don’t only ask, What should I do differently? Ask the deeper question: Who am I being—and what software am I running?
