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26. Why Resolutions Fail and Identity Actually Changes You · Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Have you ever wondered how to actually become the person you want to be? We've all tried and failed at New Year's resolutions over and over. So what if there's a better way? Today we're talking about how to become the person you want to be this year. Not by making more resolutions or trying harder, but by digging into your identity in Christ. By stepping into your God given identity, you will become the best version of you. Let's get started. If you're tired of leading others while secretly battling doubt, discouragement and mental warfare.
• 0:33
  Speaker B: And you want practical tools to renew your mind and walk boldly in your.
• 0:37
  Speaker A: Calling as a leader, you're in the right place. Welcome to Believe and Become.
• 0:41
  Speaker B: We're Josh and Carina, your spirit filled coaches, here to help you overcome those limiting beliefs and lead others confidently.
• 0:48
  Speaker A: If you're ready to hear God's voice more clearly, to step into your purpose and find joy and strength in the.
• 0:53
  Speaker B: Everyday, silence those Bible app reminders judging you from your lock screen and let's.
• 0:58
  Speaker A: Jump in foreign hey friend, here's a quick invitation before we dive in. If you're a spirit filled Christian in leadership, whether you're a pastor, business owner or a stay at home mom, and you're feeling stretched thin, stuck and overthinking or unsure how to break through what's holding your back, you're not alone. We'd love to invite you to our brand new Facebook group, Overcome Limiting Beliefs for Christians in Leadership. It's a space for faith filled leaders like you to be refreshed, encouraged and equipped to renew your mind and lead from God. God's presence, not pressure. Inside, you'll find community, practical guidance, and uplifting conversations that help you step into greater clarity, peace and purpose. Come join us. Follow the link in the show notes. We'll meet you there.
• 1:48
  Speaker B: Welcome back to Believe and Become podcast. We are so glad you're here today with us. Your identity in Christ matters so much more than New Year's resolutions, and at this time of year it's so tempting to make the resolutions, to plan to do all the things. But as I have learned over the years, it's much harder to execute. I'm really good at making plans, at making spreadsheets about all the different things I'm going to do and when I'm going to do them. I'm great at filling out a calendar, a weekly planning sheet of all the things that I'm going to accomplish this week. I I think that I plan for the highest version of myself. Unfortunately, it rarely lasts more than a week, maybe a month. If I'm doing really good, it might last a month. But then I feel so guilty. And what I've realized is I don't follow through because I'm not that person yet. I'm trying to work way into being the person that I think I should be instead of starting with who do I want to be and what. What are the things that person does and how does that person believe? How does that person think? What are the mindsets that person has? I, like many of you, hopefully I'm not alone in this, have fallen into the trap of it's a new year, and so I'm going to make new resolutions and I'm just going to become a totally different person. And you're not going to recognize me in three months because I'm going to exercise every day and I'm going to only eat vegetables and I'm going to get up early and spend time with Jesus every single day. And all these things have this huge of things that I'm going to do. And it's overwhelming because it's not who I believe that I am. And so how long does that usually last? Yeah, a week, two weeks, maybe. Maybe a month.
• 3:19
  Speaker A: That's pretty good, actually.
• 3:21
  Speaker B: I'm pretty. I'm usually pretty good for a month. It really depends on what it is.
• 3:25
  Speaker A: But I think the average New Year's resolution lasts like three days.
• 3:29
  Speaker B: Well, sometimes I don't even actually get to my resolutions because I get so excited about making them. So, like, for my whole break. Right. Because our kids get off school. So for the whole break, I'm like, planning, and this is what I'm going to do. And I'm so excited.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: Multiple spreadsheets involved, color coded.
• 3:42
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Oh, of course they're color coded. And then by New Year's, I don't even ever get to them. I've made them. I've expended all the energy that I have to plan this beautiful life. So today we're going to talk about how to overcome that. And you and me together, we're going to do it this year.
• 3:58
  Speaker A: I think we all have been there and all struggle with, you know, wanting to make a change and really struggling with it. I think sheer willpower will get us a little ways and just depends how stubborn you are. Some of us are more stubborn than others and willing to. To grit it out. But then it really comes down to what do you believe about yourself? Who. Who am I created to be? Because we can't consistently do what we don't believe we are. We say that a lot on this podcast, but it's true. If you're doing something that you don't have internal agreement on, you can't do it for very long. You have this imposter syndrome that. That's not really who I am. And then you start self sabotaging your.
• 4:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's like when you start a new diet and then you're like sneaking treats, and it's like, who am I sneaking this from? Because it doesn't affect anybody else except for me. Right. So it's like you have this idea that you're faking it. It's not real. It's not really who I am.
• 4:52
  Speaker A: Right. And so you're kind of running from the. Your true self, which is never. You're never going to be successful in that.
• 4:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker A: And so there's a different. There's a better way.
• 5:02
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 5:02
  Speaker A: And that's to really understand who you were created to be who you are and your beliefs about yourself. And so oftentimes our emotions are an indicator of what you truly believe. Yeah. So your emotions are going to tell you if your beliefs are lining up with your identity or not. Especially wherever you have a negative emotion, that's a place that you can zero in on to be like, okay, I have a belief there that needs work. And then I'm going to focus on doing the mindset work first. And then once I get my mindset right, I get my beliefs right, then your actions will flow out of that and then it's natural.
• 5:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: It's like, okay, well, you want to lose weight for the new year. If you have the belief that I love to exercise, I love to eat healthy, I love my body, I take care of my body. These are type of declarations that you can do. Once you actually believe that stuff, then it'll happen because you're start to make decisions from there. You have inner unity with this belief about yourself.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: Because our actions follow our beliefs. If we believe it, then we'll start to do it. I love when I hit a declaration that makes me cringe a little bit or laugh. Right. And so when I started doing healthy declarations, I love to exercise and eat right, eat the right amount of food for my body. I'm like, okay, I. If you have known me any length of time, you know, exercise is not one of my favorite things, and I make that very clear. But it is important for my body, and it is something that I do want to do. And so you will find me at various times pulling out my exercise equipment, or I'm going to, you know, walk every day. But really beginning to agree with that belief that my body is a temple, a temple of the Holy Spirit, and I want to take care of it. That I can agree with. And so sometimes finding a way to start looking at it where I actually do, whether or not I have been good at taking care of it in the past, I know that this is actually some. A desire of my heart. And so I can agree with that declaration. And as I begin to make that declaration regularly, then maybe some other beliefs will start to surface about what I. How I actually feel about my body, or when I go to do something or eat something or, you know, sit on the couch all day or whatever it might be that is not good for my body, then I have that thought, actually, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and is this what I should be doing with it? Is this how I should steward it? So it's so important that we do the mindset work first, just like you said, because if we want a new result, we need a new belief. So who do you want to be? Who do you want to be? Not what do you want to do. You can, you can think about anytime you've done something for a certain amount of time, right? Like I'm going to run a 5K. So you start the couch to 5K program. You go every day, you go run, walk, run, walk, run until you're running that 5K easily. And then you go and do the 5K. And because you don't have the belief that you are a runner or you are a person who exercises regularly, it just is like Monday, where you're like, oh, I'm just going to take today off, right? And then, oh, and then it's two days. And then, you know, weeks have passed and you haven't gone out for another run because it's not who you believe you are. You can do the thing, right? You can set the goal and do the thing, but who do you want to be? And I think that's the more important question.
• 8:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, it would be much better to take some time to work on your beliefs first and then you can operate out of your identity. Science tells us it takes about nine weeks to create a new belief or new structure in your brain. But it only takes about seven minutes a day for those nine weeks. And you can change the way that you think. You can change the actual physical structure of your brain. So if you do that and spend nine weeks telling yourself that your body's a fat Burning machine, then the weight loss is going to be so much easier because you're operating out of a core belief that you actually have about yourself.
• 8:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's so good.
• 8:42
  Speaker A: God is much more interested in developing who we are than what we do. He's much more interested in our identity than our actions. Yeah, because he cares about our character. He's more interested in developing our internal strength. And so. And God's not in a hurry. We're always in a hurry. God's not in a rush. He's got time. He's got the big picture. And he goes, if it's going to take five years to develop the character, I'm good with that. Yeah, he's. He's okay with taking you through that process and waiting until you're ready for the next step. We're always like, okay, God, give me the thing. I'm ready for my blessing. I'm ready to step into my new ministry, my new job, my new identity. I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Give me the responsibilities. I'm ready for the blessing. And he goes, if I gave that to you now, that would actually crush you. You're not ready for it. He wants to develop your character enough that you have the strength that you will steward what he gives you. Well, so many of us are like, okay, I'm ready for the financial blessing. He's like, actually, I want to see you be faithful with little before I give you much. And that's just that, the parable of the talents and just over and over. God wants to grow us internally before we're ready to step into the new thing.
• 9:51
  Speaker B: The Israelites in the wilderness is a great example, too, because they came out of Egypt as slaves, and so they thought like slaves. Right. They wanted somebody to tell them what to do, to give them their food, to take care of them, because that's what they were used to. But they couldn't enter the promise land and fight and win and hang on to it if they didn't develop the character that they needed. As they trudged through the wilderness, as they fought one little battle after another and slowly gained the confidence that they needed to enter in and to win the promised land. And then they would know how to keep it. So often we want the promise of God without becoming the person who can steward that promise well, who can hang on to the promise. And we've. We see it play out all around us, people who rise quickly and then crumble because their character has not developed along with their position or authority. It's so important that we recognize God wants us to be the person on the inside who we want to be on the outside. Before we ever get there, we have to dig into that identity.
• 10:57
  Speaker A: And it comes down to this. God is a good father. Yeah. And he knows what we can handle, what we can't, what's going to be good for us and what's not. And so he's always got us in this process and he's all about relationship. He really just wants us to be close to him. That's the most important thing. And so whatever's gonna draw us closer to him is really what he's after. And that he can speak our true identity into us. And that is what he wants to do. So let's talk about some practical ways to overcome self limiting beliefs. What do we do when we. I have identified, okay, there's an area in my life I wanna change in or I want to see a different result. I've got some beliefs that are holding me back. What are the things that I can do to step into that?
• 11:40
  Speaker B: So I think actually before we even start that, I want you to think about what are the resolutions that you would make this year? What are the things that you would say, these are the things I want to accomplish. Or do we want to figure out who that person is? And is this the person that God wants you to be? Because that's the first thing you need to do is figure out who you want to be and who God wants you to be. Because you can achieve all the things, but if you are not in line with who God made you to be, you're not going to be happy. There are so many people who have achieved wealth and success and things that the world would deem as highly valuable and they're empty and lonely and sad and they're always searching for more. We don't want to be that person. We want to say, who do you want me to be, Lord, and who do I want to be in in line with that? And then we start to ask ourselves some other questions. How does that person think? What are the habits that person has? What lies am I believing about myself that would keep me from becoming that person? And work through these questions. How does that person think? What is the mindset that I need to have to become the CEO that I want to be, to become the mom I want to be, to become the pastor that I want to be? How do I need to think? Because if I a CEO with a poverty mentality, that's not going to be very good. For my company. If I'm a mom who doesn't know how to nurture or love because I don't love myself, that's not going to be a very happy home. And so we have to think about, who do I want to be with these resolutions that I would make? Why do I want to make these resolutions? Who is the person that I'm trying to become?
• 13:14
  Speaker A: I think it's like, if you want to become a successful business owner, how does that person operate? Well, okay, they show up every day. They are intentional about how they use their time. They use their time wisely. They're making the right connections with the right people. They're putting things on. On their calendar that they need to do. They're organized, they're reliable. They do what they say they're gonna do. So just start going through the process. Okay, I wanna be an author. What is, what do authors do? Well, they actually write stuff, right?
• 13:38
  Speaker B: Every day.
• 13:39
  Speaker A: You know, every day they're gonna write, they're gonna read books about text and techniques on writing, how to effectively tell a story. So think about what that person actually would do and then put that into your plan and what you're gonna do every day. And then you can start doing some other things to improve your mindset at the same time. We've talked about that a lot, but one of the most important things is to follow the hol Spirit's leading on how to change your mindset and your beliefs about yourself. Because he is our best life coach, Holy Spirit will always lead us. So just spend some time with the Lord, asking him, what do I need to do to develop myself in this area, to step into my identity that you've already told me that I have. And whatever he's leading you to do, follow those steps and we'll give you some ideas that you can use. But ultimately, we want to follow his plan for us.
• 14:23
  Speaker B: Also, you want to find scriptures that are in line with where you are heading. So even just as simple as, like I mentioned earlier, if your goal is to, you know, lose weight or to get healthy, My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Right? This is something that is. Is so important. I take care. I'm a good steward of this body that the Lord has given me. And so finding scriptures to. To change your mind and move you in the direction you want to go is really important. You want to meditate on those scriptures, write them down, memorize them, mutter them as you go about your day, reminding yourself of what the Bible says about.
• 14:57
  Speaker A: Who you are and Declarations are one of our favorite ways to change the way that we think, to change what we truly believe about ourselves, about God, about other people. And those are just positive statements that are based on scripture, things that God has spoken over you. If you want to be an author, you need to start telling yourself, I'm an author. I write books. I'm a great writer. If you want to be a business owner, say, I'm great with money. I'm a great steward of what God has given me. I have incredible ideas that the Holy Spirit's inspiring in me to generate wealth, to grow new businesses, to invest in other people, and so spend some time with the Lord, just saying, okay, what are truths that I need to speak out over myself? And then we're harnessing the power of our tongues. Our tongues have the power of life and death. And those that love it will eat its fruit. We just want to harness the truth of God's word, declaring that over ourselves. And those words, as we hear them coming out of our mouths, it changes us internally.
• 15:51
  Speaker B: And then as you're declaring, as you're meditating on Scripture, begin to visualize and imagine the person that you are becoming. Imagine what does it look like that I'm the temple of the Holy Spirit? What does it feel like that I take care of this body really well? What does it look and feel like to be that CEO that I want to be? To be that successful business owner or that loving and adored mom? What does it look like to become who I want to be? What does it feel like when we add our imagination, those changes happen more quickly. But when we add the emotions and the feelings and even more quickly, and so we want to make sure that we are using all of our senses and obviously prayer. We want to be in constant prayer. God, who. What do you think? Who do you. Who do you say I am? What do you think about me constantly in conversation with him, allowing him to speak into those places and know that there are going to be areas where those wrong beliefs or those lies of the enemy that he's planted are going to come up. It's gonna happen. You're gonna come up against places where you feel like this is not true or, I don't think I can do that. Anything that feels negative, that feels like I can't or this won't work. Anything that feels hopeless, right? So any area in our life that feels hopeless, we know that is under the influence of a lie. So if you have trouble identifying those areas but you know that you're stuck, we are here to help you. That is what we do. We are beliefs trainers, we are beliefs coaches. And we have a great program designed just for you to help you overcome limiting beliefs in any area, but especially around leadership, motherhood, owning a business, all of these things. We would be so honored to walk you through these areas and to help you find the truth and so you can find out information about that on our website. Joshandkarina.com coaching yeah, once you start to.
• 17:46
  Speaker A: Identify the lies and replace those with the truth, that really accelerates your transformation. So many times we are stuck spinning our wheels and it's like, why can't I change? Why can't I change? I'm trying, I'm doing everything. I'm doing all the things I'm trying so hard, but I'm still stuck. I'm still the same. It means that there's a stronghold, there's a lie that we've been believing probably for a really long time. And so we love to come alongside people. Let's identify those lies together. God is really good about showing those to us, revealing them to us, and then we replace those with the truth and then you just reprogram your brain to think a new way. And that's, that's actually pretty easy to do once we do all these different steps that we've talked about and the transformation is just beautiful. We love to see that in our clients lives as they step into who they're truly created to be. It's incredible. And I love how Karina was talking about using our imagination. I love to go to the Holy Spirit and ask him, give me a picture. What does it look like for me to step into this? And once you get that picture in your mind, that's something that you can come back to again and again. It'll get hard again because we have to keep reprogramming, we have to keep retraining ourselves. These strongholds keep popping back up. But if you have that picture from the Lord, you can go, okay, nope, actually that's not true. I remember when Jesus showed me that he has more than enough for me. I remember that picture that he showed me. I can go back to that. That's so powerful and so practically. There's some other things that we help our clients to do, and one of those is working on our habits. And what small changes can you make every single day as you're working on your beliefs and mindset. You can actually do both at the same time and will accelerate your transformation as well.
• 19:25
  Speaker B: I think what's key is that it's small changes. Right. That we're not trying to change everything. Like, I'm going to start to make these declarations and I'm going to do something that's totally out of my character, that I've never done before. Right. It's tiny changes. Small changes, yeah.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: Examples are if you want to write a book, just set the timer and write for five minutes a day. Or like if, say you wanted to run a marathon, but right now you're completely out of shape and you've never run before. Like, you're not going to go out and run 26 miles. You will kill yourself. So you need to start small. Okay, well, I'm just going to start with walking every day. Yeah. So think and brainstorm with the Holy Spirit. What. What's a small change that I know I can do consistently? And make a commitment to yourself. If you say it out loud and be specific. Okay, tomorrow at 9:00am I'm going to go for a walk for 15 minutes. You're making commitment to yourself. And actually, as you hear yourself say that, it is powerful. It's. It's more powerful than just thinking it. And then put it in your calendar, be really super practical and then do that for a week. Okay, I was successful with that. Maybe I'll walk for longer. Maybe I'm going to add a small jog with that. The other thing you can do is a habit stacking. And so if you're something that you already do, like say every day, you get up and you make your coffee. All right, but you want to add reading your Bible or doing your declarations, right? And say, okay, tomorrow after I make my coffee, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to read my Bible for five minutes, and I'm going to start in Matthew 1. Make a specific plan, say it out loud, put it on your calendar.
• 20:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: So you already have an established habit. You're going to just add something new onto it. And actually there's this reward system in your brain that kites up when you're like, okay, I did my coffee. Okay, I'm doing the next thing. You're like, oh, you get this kind of like, of success that you're doing something good for yourself. And so attach it to something that you already naturally do. And that makes developing a new habit that much easier.
• 21:16
  Speaker B: For me, that has looked like when the coffee machine is warming up in the morning, I empty the dishes from the sink. It's so simple. But it was something that once we eat breakfast and I make lunches for the kids. And we have this huge pile of dishes. And then we would have a sink full of dishes, and it would drive me nuts. And I'm like, how can I not have this happen? And so it was just one morning. I got up, I went to turn the coffee machine on. I'm half awake. And I was like, oh, I should empty the dishes. And it was just this simple thought that turned into a habit that has just helped our mornings flow so much easier. Because then when it's time to wash the dishes, there's nothing in the way of that. It's these little things. Or whenever I brush my teeth, I'm gonna stretch my calves and my legs, and I'm gonna do squats, and so I'll stretch while I'm brushing my teeth in the morning. So we're just adding little things to get us closer to where we want to be, but we're attaching them to things we already do. And I think that is so key.
• 22:12
  Speaker A: It just allows us to make these kind of micro changes while we're working on our beliefs about ourselves and we're stepping into our true identity. Then it gets way easier. Once you've been able to overcome any lies that are holding you back and you're replacing those with truth, then you really start to see the progress. Yeah, but you're not fighting yourself. Those lies will really hold us back if we don't address them with the Lord. And we actually have a free habit tracker that we've developed that allows you to track what you want to do every day. And it's customizable and it will work for any year. And that's going to be available on our website. The link will be in the show notes, but allows you to put in, okay, I want to start doing my declarations every day. And then you can check that off. And then in a month you can go, oh, my gosh, I did declarations every day for a whole month. Or even if you miss a day or two, you want to just keep moving forward. Never stop starting. That is something that has helped me so much. And so we're going to make that available for you. You can customize that, put in your different daily systems that you want to develop in your life, and you can track those and feel really proud of yourself. When you've made it past those three days of New Year's resolutions, you've actually made significant progress.
• 23:25
  Speaker B: I mean, if you do five days or six days, you surpassed most other people in the world.
• 23:31
  Speaker A: That is true.
• 23:32
  Speaker B: So you're doing great.
• 23:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you always want to celebrate yourself. We don't wait for perfection to celebrate ourselves and be joyful. It's like, okay, I made it a day. Yes, I did it. And the more you can celebrate and attach joy to what you're doing.
• 23:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker A: The more successful you're going to be.
• 23:47
  Speaker B: Yep. So good. Well, thank you so much for tuning in today. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and that you learned that you don't have to try so hard to be the person you want to be. You just have to agree with who God already says that you are. And we hope that you took away some practical things that you can start implementing right away. Whether it's mindset work or habit stacking and tracking, or whether it's just sitting with God and listening to who he says that you are. We pray that you will be blessed and that you will begin to step into greater identity and agree with who God says you are. Because he says that you are wonderful, you are amazing, and you are powerful, and you are going to change the world.
• 24:27
  Speaker A: You can do this. And God is giving you grace. That's his supernatural empowerment to change and to become who he created you to be right now. We love you so much and have a great new year.
• 24:39
  Speaker B: Happy New Year. Hey, friend. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds to to share this podcast with someone who may need encouragement or practical tools for fighting their battle?
• 24:55
  Speaker A: Then rate and review this podcast. Help us spread the message of transformation far and wide.
• 25:01
  Speaker B: All right, time to walk back into the noise with peace, purpose and maybe a tiny bit of guffing.
• 25:06
  Speaker A: We'll meet you back next Thursday for another episode. Bye.