How to Change Who I Am (Even When I Feel Stuck in My Identity)

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “This is just who I am. This is just what life looks like for people like me”?

Maybe it slips out quietly, almost like a sigh. Perhaps it shows up when you’re tired, overwhelmed, or staring at the same to-do list that somehow followed you from yesterday.

You love your family. Gratitude fills your heart for your life. Your best is what you’re giving every single day.

And yet… there’s this subtle ache. A longing you don’t talk about lives inside you. Something within has dimmed, not disappeared, but softened into a glow that used to burn brighter.

Every time you feel that longing, something else shows up right behind it: Guilt. Resistance. A voice that says, “You should be grateful. You shouldn’t want more. This is just who you are.”

Last week, we talked about how self-love isn’t selfish, it’s actually what allows you to show up fully for your family. Today, we’re going deeper.

Why That Message Might Have Triggered Something in You

The truth is: You’re not resisting self-love. What you’re actually resisting is the idea that you’re allowed to change.

That resistance didn’t start in adulthood. It didn’t begin when you became a mother, when life got busy, or when responsibilities piled up.

It started much earlier.

Can You Really Change Who You Are as a Person?

Today we’re tackling one of the most common and most damaging beliefs women carry:

“This is just who I am. I can’t change.”

It sounds harmless. Humble, even. Responsible, perhaps.

But it’s not truth. It’s a belief. A belief that quietly shapes your identity, your choices, your relationships, and your future.

By the end of this post, I want you to walk away with a new belief:

“This is who I learned to be. I can rewrite the script.”

Why You Feel Stuck in Your Identity (The Seven-Year-Old Running Your Life)

Let’s talk about where this belief actually comes from.

Imagine a movie set. A director’s chair sits right in the middle of it. For most women, without even realizing it, the person sitting in that chair, calling the shots, making the decisions, shaping the story, is not your 40-year-old self.

It’s your seven-year-old self.

I know that might sound dramatic. Stay with me, because this is one of the most important things I’m going to tell you.

When Your Core Beliefs Were Formed

By around age seven, your brain has already formed its core beliefs about who you are, what things mean, how the world works, where you fit in it, what love requires, what safety feels like, what you’re allowed to need, and what you’re allowed to express.

You decided, as a child, how to interpret tone, conflict, disappointment, rejection, success, and love. Here’s what most of us don’t realize: those early experiences didn’t just create memories. They created a logic system that’s still running your life today.

Your Brain Is Trying to Protect You

Here’s the thing: your brain isn’t trying to hurt you. It’s actually trying to protect you. Your mind is wired to scan for danger, and change, even good change, registers as a threat. So it keeps you in the familiar. Not because it’s right, but because it’s known.

Known feels safe, even when it’s painful.

Your memory says, “This is how it’s always been.” Logic responds, “So this is how it will always be.” Together, they whisper on repeat: “This is just who I am.”

These childhood beliefs don’t just shape your identity; they shape where you believe your value comes from. which is why changing feels so threatening to your sense of self.

The Truth Nobody Told You

You are not meant to live the rest of your life inside the limits of who you were at seven.

Permission to outgrow the beliefs that once protected you is yours to claim. Expansion beyond the identity you built in childhood is not only possible, but it’s also your birthright. The woman you’re meant to become is someone your younger self never imagined.

The Cost of Believing “This Is Just Who I Am”

Let’s talk about what happens when you keep living from that childhood logic.

When you believe “this is just who I am,” you’re not just accepting yourself. You’re actually limiting yourself. That limitation creates consequences.

How the Belief Compounds Over Time

It shows up as challenge, pain, and dissatisfaction that compounds—day after day, year after year—until you’ve built this mountain of evidence that proves to yourself that nothing can change.

See? I was right. This is just who I am.

It Doesn’t Just Affect You

Here’s the part we don’t like to admit: It doesn’t just affect you.

You might think, “This is my internal struggle. This is just me dealing with my own stuff.” But just like you can tell when something is off with your kids or your spouse, when they’re distracted, or distant, or just not fully present, they can feel it with you too.

They feel the disconnection. The shortness in your responses follows. Moodiness seeps through. Distance grows. Not because you don’t love them. But because you’re living a half-life when there is so much more of you available.

Choosing personal growth isn’t choosing yourself over your family, it’s choosing to show up as your whole self so you can love them better.

Full presence for them becomes impossible when you’re not fully showing up for yourself. Giving them the best version of you proves impossible when you’ve convinced yourself that this diminished version is all you are.

What Your Children Are Learning

Here’s the deeper truth, the one that lands hardest for mothers: Your children are learning from you the same way you learned at seven.

They’re watching how you treat yourself. Observation of what you believe you’re allowed to have shapes their worldview. Whether you shrink or rise becomes their blueprint for what’s possible.

This belief doesn’t just shape your life. It shapes theirs.

How to Change Who I Am: Evidence That Transformation Is Possible

Let me ask you something:

Do you know someone who has transformed their life, someone who surprised you because they’re no longer the train wreck they used to be?

Growth has happened. Maturity has emerged. Wisdom, groundedness, and responsibility now define them.

They are no longer who they once were.

The People Who Haven’t Changed

And do you also know someone who hasn’t changed at all?

Someone who frustrates you because they refuse to grow up, to mature, to think beyond themselves?

The Question That Changes Everything

If transformation is possible for them… why do you believe it’s impossible for you?

If someone else can grow, evolve, and become a different version of themselves, then the belief “This is just who I am. I can’t change” cannot be a universal truth.

It’s not a fact. It’s a sentence. A story. A script written by a child who didn’t know any better.

How I Changed My Identity (And How You Can Too)

So let me tell you how this played out in my own life.

I didn’t wake up one day and just decide to become a different person. No dramatic breakdown or breakthrough moment where everything suddenly made sense happened.

I had something much quieter than that.

The Exhaustion That Sparked Change

I had exhaustion.

Tiredness from feeling like I was living someone else’s life consumed me. Checking all the boxes but feeling empty became my norm. Looking in the mirror and not recognizing the woman staring back at me hurt. Saying “I’m fine” when I wasn’t fine, when I was disappearing, became automatic.

If you’re constantly exhausted despite doing everything “right,” it might be worth asking yourself why, because exhaustion is often your internal, higher self, telling you something needs to change.

The worst part? I thought that was just how life worked. Sacrifice, shrinkage, making yourself small enough to fit into everyone else’s needs, that’s what being a responsible adult, a good mother, a good wife looked like.

This is just who I am now.

The Question That Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone

But then something shifted. It wasn’t a big moment; it was a small question that wouldn’t leave me alone.

I started noticing people around me who had changed. People who used to be a mess, stuck in the same patterns, the same problems, the same limitations for years, and then one day, they weren’t anymore.

And I kept thinking: If they can change… why can’t I?

Every time I asked myself that question, I waited for the answer. The excuse followed by the explanation for why I was different.

But the honest answer was: I’m not uniquely broken. The exception to transformation isn’t me. Not being the one person for whom growth doesn’t work became clear.

The only thing keeping me stuck was the belief that I was stuck.

The Choice That Changed Everything

So I chose.

Not confidently. Not with some grand plan or clear roadmap. Guarantee that it would work? None existed.

I just chose.

Stopping the seven-year-old from running my life became my decision. Believing that who I had been was all I could ever be ended. “What would the truest version of me do?” replaced “What’s the safest thing to do?”

Once I chose, everything began to change.

The Gradual Transformation

Not all at once. Not magically. Lightning bolt moments didn’t happen.

But step by step. Choice by choice. Day by day.

Reconnecting with the parts of myself I had buried started. Speaking up in conversations where I used to stay silent began. Setting boundaries where I used to just accommodate became normal. Pursuing things that lit me up instead of just things that needed to get done transformed my days.

My light grew brighter. Relationships deepened, not because I became perfect, but because I became present. Joy returned. Passion returned. My voice returned.

What Shocked Me Most

I became a whole person again, and here’s what shocked me: my family flourished because of it.

Not because I abandoned them to go “find myself.” But because I stopped abandoning myself to take care of them.

They didn’t need a martyr. They needed a mother who was fully alive.

That’s what I became. Not because I became someone different. But because I became someone truer.

The woman I am now? She would be unrecognizable to the woman I was five years ago. And the woman I was five years ago would be shocked, maybe even threatened, by the choices I make today.

But that’s the point.

You’re not supposed to stay who you were. Growth is your purpose. Evolution is your path. Looking back at your younger self with compassion and thinking, “I’m so glad I’m not her anymore”—that’s the goal.

3 Steps to Start Changing Who You Are Today

So what does this look like for you today? Right now?

Let me make it really simple. The first two steps happen in your mind. The third one is where the real work begins.

Step One: Name the Belief

Say it out loud if you need to. “This is just who I am.”

Step Two: Tell Yourself the Truth

“No. This is who I learned to be. And I can learn something different.”

Step Three: Make One Small, Defiant Choice

One choice your old identity wouldn’t make.

Maybe it’s saying “I need 20 minutes” without the apology that usually follows. Without the explanation. Without making yourself small enough to fit into everyone else’s needs first.

Perhaps it’s finally signing up for that class you’ve been thinking about for two years. The one you keep bookmarking and then talking yourself out of because “it’s not the right time” or “it’s too expensive” or “who am I to think I could do that?”

You don’t need perfect clarity before you act; action comes first, and clarity follows. The choice itself is what teaches your brain new logic.

Maybe it’s simply naming out loud, to yourself, to your partner, to a friend, “I’m allowed to want more. And wanting more doesn’t make me ungrateful.”

How New Beliefs Form

That’s it. That’s the beginning.

Choosing is what teaches your brain a new logic. Creating new memories happens through choosing. How you rewrite who you are becoming starts with choice.

Not who you were. Who you are becoming.

What to Expect When You Start to Change

Now, I know what might be happening in your mind right now.

You might be thinking, “Okay, Misty, this sounds good in theory. But you don’t understand. I’ve tried to change before. I’ve tried to prioritize myself before. And every time I do, the guilt shows up. The logistics fall apart. Someone needs something. And I fall right back into the same pattern.”

And you’re right, that probably will happen.

Change Isn’t a Linear Process

Because change isn’t a straight line. Messiness defines it. Inconsistency follows. Two steps forward and one step back will happen. Making a choice for yourself and then feeling guilty about it is normal. Setting a boundary and then immediately wanting to take it back will occur.

But here’s what I need you to understand:

That guilt? That resistance? That voice that says “who do you think you are?”, that’s not proof that you’re doing something wrong.

The Discomfort Is the Sign

That’s proof that you’re doing something different.

Discomfort isn’t a stop sign. It’s a sign that you’re actually changing the script. Updating the programming happens through this discomfort. Teaching your brain new logic requires it.

Yes, it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first. Your nervous system is wired to keep you safe, not to keep you growing. Growth always feels risky to a brain that’s been running the same pattern for 30, 40 years.

What’s on the Other Side

But let me paint you a picture of what’s on the other side of that discomfort.

When you start making choices from your truest self instead of your smallest self:

You wake up and you recognize yourself again. Not the role you play. Not the identity you perform. The actual YOU.

Feeling like a stranger in your own life stops. Moving through your days on autopilot, checking boxes but feeling nothing ends. Connection to yourself, to your choices, to the life you’re building, starts.

Apologizing for taking up space stops. Shrinking to make other people comfortable ends. Performing “fine” when you’re not fine becomes a thing of the past.

The Woman You’re Becoming

You become the woman who knows what she needs and isn’t afraid to name it. Holding your own desires without feeling selfish becomes natural. Saying “I matter too” without guilt drowning out your voice becomes possible.

That’s who you’re becoming.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

Here’s what that looks like in your actual life:

Your relationships get better. Not because you become perfect, but because you become present. Your kids stop getting the exhausted, irritable version of you and start getting the version who has energy left to actually enjoy them.

Your marriage stops feeling like a business partnership where you’re both just managing logistics. When you show up whole, there’s actually something to connect to.

Work gets better. Creativity returns. Confidence grows. Not because you suddenly became more capable, you were always capable, but because you’re no longer operating from a place of depletion.

Living your life in your head, worried about everyone else’s opinion, and afraid of getting it wrong, stops. Living your life in your body, in the present moment, making choices that feel true instead of safe begins.

The Blueprint You’re Creating

And here’s the part that matters most:

Your kids watch you do this. They watch you choose yourself without abandoning them. Observation of your growth without apology shapes them. Watching you become creates their possibility.

That becomes their blueprint for what’s possible.

The Real Question: Will You Choose to Change Who You Are?

So here’s the real question, and I want you to sit with this:

Are you willing to keep living a half-life because it feels safer than risking a whole one?

Are you willing to stay small because it’s familiar, even though it’s suffocating?

Letting that seven-year-old keep running your life because challenging her logic feels too hard, too uncomfortable, too risky, is that your choice?

Or are you ready to step back into the director’s chair of your own life?

You Can Have Both

Because here’s what I know: You can love your life and still long for more. Gratitude and growth coexist. Honoring who you’ve been and still becoming who you’re meant to be is possible.

The longing isn’t disloyalty. The longing is your soul telling you there’s more of you to become.

You Get to Choose

And you get to choose.

Staying in the story you’ve been telling yourself, “This is just who I am. I can’t change”, is one option.

Or you can start writing a new one, “This is who I learned to be. And I can learn something truer.”

The question isn’t whether you’re capable of transformation.

The question is: Will you choose it?

Your Next Step in Learning How to Change Who You Are

If this post stirred something in you, if you felt that whisper, that tug, I want you to take one small choice today that your “this is just who I am” self would never make.

And if you’re ready to go deeper, to truly stop feeling invisible and start designing a life that feels fully alive, that’s exactly what Your Utmost Self is all about.

This is exactly what we’re doing together, honoring your story, rewriting your logic, and reclaiming the version of you that feels fully alive.

And before you go, I want to leave you with this…

You are more than everyone’s everything. You are someone. Take the journey back to you—you’re worth it.