Blossoming Beyond Goals: Cultivating Self-Identity and Embracing Transformation by achieving your goals.

ASM EP. #16 Expanding Your Self-Identity Through Achieving Your Goals 

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Sonya Tompkins. Thank you so much for being here today. I want to talk to you about how you can it grow or expand your self identity through achieving  your goals. Okay. Sometimes, I think when, when folks talk about or think about a goal that they want to fulfill people don’t really see the longterm benefits, the life-changing transformation that comes from you fulfilling your goals, right? I personally have seen this happen for myself over and over and over again. And so for me, I understand that fulfilling a particular goal that I have during this particular season of my life, or season a business or season in my relationships, whatever that looks like. It’s about this moment, it’s about this particular goal, but I also understand that if I take my life and I’m looking at it from a Eagle’s eye perspective, I can see how each individual goal that I have achieved has transformed my entire life. 

And I know that this can happen for you because it’s happened for me over and over. So first things first let’s talk about what your self identity is. 

I want to. Like make that clear. I feel like it’s self-explanatory. Um, but I never want to take for granted what I understand and what I already know as if everybody knows it.  so self identity is just a fancy way of saying the way you think about yourself. Your self  identity encompasses like the thoughts you have about yourself. It is the way you view yourself. It is how you connect yourself.  Even how you value yourself, right. So your self identity is all of those things wrapped in to one. 

And depending on what your self identity is at any particular point. It really does have a huge effect on things like your self esteem, your self confidence. And your self-esteem your self-confidence your belief in yourself has a direct correlation to how you’ll go about, Or if you’ll even go about, I should say achieving goals, you know, and, and thinking or knowing that achieving your goals is really possible for you. So that’s what self identity is. 

I started noticing like the correlation between having a goal. Achieving the goal. And myself identity expanding   the time that I remember it really like, it was like, bam right there in my face was probably when I was opening my first, um, brick and mortar business, which was a salon and day spa. 

So I set the goal when I was. Around 12. I think it was and I was already  📍 doing hair. I was doing something that was fascinating to me. It was fun and allowed me to be creative. It also played in to, one of my  love languages, which is,  words of affirmation, right. 

And acts of service. So in me performing an act of service. My friends at the time, again, I’m 12 and 13. So I was doing my friend’s hair. I was doing my hair, you know, family’s hair, you know, they would in turn, give me words of affirmation. Oh my God, girl, you just lay my hair out or, you know, dang I’ve looked good. 

You know, and having those words of affirmation. Helped me feel even more empowered to go after my goal. It was like, okay, wait a minute. I think I’m good at this. And now other people are also affirming that I’m really good at it. So it really helped kind of keep me on the path. Of achieving that goal. 

So I was doing things from 12 to 15, I’m doing these things, but I’m doing it from a place of. I want to do it. So I’m doing it from a place of desire not out of a place, not from a place of being afraid that if I don’t do it or doing it from a place of trying to fulfill someone else’s expectations. 

 I’m putting myself in positions to fulfill this goal, but I’m not doing a lot of hard work. I am doing work. I am working towards it, but I’m not doing hard work. Right. I’m just doing the things. And in that, example, there is a requirement. You do have to be licensed if you want to have a legitimate business. 

So I was doing the things that were required, but I wasn’t working hard at it to get the education to be able to, to do that. And let me say this, there were times there was challenge along the ways I remember for me  when I was in school, um, the actual styling of the hair, uh, was, was easy learning about the health of the hair. 

And I mean, I really dove head first into that. I, again, at 45. Now I know myself enough to know that.  I have always. Been like a nerd about having a deep sense of care and concern for anything that I do. So when I do something I’m super passionate about it, I’m going to go deep with it. I’m not about surface level stuff. 

So healthy hair, taking care of the person, giving them a great experience making the hairstyle look really nice. 

That came really easy to me. Here’s some things that were challenging along the way. For some reason hair cutting was just. It was just a challenge, right? But even with that, I won’t say it was hard, but it was definitely a challenge. I think for, for, again, knowing myself, looking back now.  Cutting hair requires some technical parts. That are mathematical. Okay. And if you’ve heard me.  Say this before. I’m gonna say it again. I used to say all the time, like I don’t do math. Like if you’re a client of mine or you’ve worked with me before, you’ve probably heard me be like, okay, we’re trying to figure something out. It’s a mathematical problem. 

I’m about to pull out a calculator because I don’t do.  Math right. 

here’s what I know now. It’s not that I don’t do math because I’m a coach. I’m a life and business coach. I solve problems with people all the time.  It’s the numerical math that.  Hasn’t always been my friend, right. And so cutting hair requires mathematical math. 

It was very precise. There’s a lot of precision there’s, angles, you know, or one eighty  angles, 90 degree angles, all of these things make a difference in how the hair’s gone to lay, if you couldn’t and it’s very sort of final, if you cut someone’s hair and you cut it wrong you could piss somebody off. 

And so for me, learning the technical part the mathematical part of haircutting was challenging for me and also, uh, working through the fear of, oh my God. If I cut this person’s hair wrong they going to be pissed off at me. And what does that mean? And, you know, All of those sort of emotional Things were areas that were challenging for me. 

Um, so there was challenge. There was challenge. Right. But every step of the way where there was challenged, like learning the technical part of math. 

Right. Okay. Now I’ve got that okay. I see you. Actually learning that it is okay to make a mistake. You know, we’re here to practice. You have these mannequin hands to practice cutting this hair and you can cut. 15 different times, you know, and mess it up 14 or 15 times. But when you do it right on that 15th time, Guess what? 

All right now you ready to go? Now you can take that experience where you messed up 14 times and I got it right the 15th time. Now I’m like feeling more confident to now go and try this on a real person’s, you know, hair I’ve worked through those challenges and

each time 

it 

worked through the challenge, 

right

I’m hitting a very small goal. I’m hitting a micro goal.

It’s the point  o  version of the goal, right. 

At each time that I was able to hit that,  

1.0, version of the goal. I was able to grow the way I saw myself the way I thought about my skillset changed. The way I thought about how well I was going to do as a hairstylist started to grow. 

So every micro goal that I achieved in the journey of achieving the ultimate goal helped to grow myself identity. 

Okay. So it wasn’t just, okay. When I get to the end of the store, it’s like, oh, okay. You, you hit the goal and now you feel good now, you, you feel accomplished every little step along the way. 

Built more confidence. It built more self identity. It built belief in myself and each of those beliefs helped me to keep going. 

Now let’s fast forward, I’m learning all these things go to state boards. Nervous as all get out.  and. ACE it, I passed on my first try. 

First try. Now, I’m not saying that to brag. I’m also wanting to share that, to share another challenge. Another thing that I’ve learned about myself, And now has grown. My self identity has grown. My beliefs about myself is  I don’t have to work really hard and study all the things and have every single detail in order for me to fulfill or manifest my goals. 

And I want to just make a disclaimer that is not. The way for everyone. Like I’m being totally serious. Every one is not designed that way. And I’m not better because I’m designed that way because for me, and been a challenge accepting and understanding that I don’t have to work that hard  in order to, to manifest and fulfill my goals. 

That in itself. It’s a learning experience, but I remember agonizing over taking the state board test to get my cosmetology license. I mean, I agonized over it.  But I would sit down and I would try to study and, you know, just kind of go do the most basically. And it just was like, Ugh. I don’t know, it just never really clicked for me. 

And.  

Got to take my test. And I knew other people who was like, I mean, these were like the stars in our class. Like somebody who people were stars in my cosmetology class and the practical class and the theory, like they were killing it and they had to take their tests a couple of times or different parts of the test a couple of times in order to get their license and I pass on the first try and that like blew my mind. 

I remember thinking like, just knew I was going to have to take, you know,  Part of this test over. I mean, I just, I really thought that you guys. 

But I didn’t. And so I started noticing.  Okay. Here’s here’s another way that pattern is showing up for me, right. 

So same thing now in a fast forward, I’ve worked in a salon a couple of years. I’ve gotten, you know, that experience and now I’m ready to fulfill the ultimate goal, which was to have my own business, not just be self-employed as a stylist who was renting a booth that actually owned my own salon. 

Listen everywhere went that I talked to somebody about opening this business, even other Salon owners. It was very much like,  you need to have a business plan and then you’re gonna need to go to the bank. You need to try to get a loan  and you need to, you know, your loan, you probably gonna need at least, you know, 60, $70,000 in order to do all of these things. And I was just like, 

That’s  like a whole lot. I don’t want to do nothing where I got to sit down and like, Explain to people what I’m trying to do and write out every little step. And thank God I had people in my life, um, who were able to give me a different perspective. Right.

My mom is one  I also had a family friend who was  really taught me a lot about, self-awareness and knowing who you are and she was also like, you know, yes, that is a way you can do a business plan and all of that, but you can also attract things to you. You know, that was around the same time. 

I started really getting into, learning about the law of attraction and  just really diving deep in who I, who I was and who I was becoming, uh, from the lens of being an adult. 

And so I had to envision, I remember.  You know, envisioning. Like what I, what I wanted my salon to look like, I would envision.  Myself, working in my salon.  I would envision myself, you know, laughing with clients. I would envision myself shampooing their hair hear it. Like I would, I would just try to.  Make myself.  Visualize it in my head, which that was a challenge for me. 

And I keep pointing out like these areas of where challenge showed up for me. Because sometimes I think folks think that challenge is something that’s very like in your face.  But a lot of times,  Our individual challenges are just that. And they don’t always look the way that other people’s challenges look or challenges, aren’t always physical challenges. They aren’t always financial challenges. And I, I dare to say some of them, some of the most.  Difficult challenges to overcome are  emotional challenges, because they’re not things that you can see. 

They’re not necessarily tangible.  The paradigm is definitely changing now, but for so long, didn’t  nobody has time for feelings, like nobody was telling you about your feelings and, and, and that, that was a real thing. 

And so I would do those kinds of exercises. Um, I still went to work every day. I still went to work renting my booth  Every day as a independent stylist in  someone else’s salon. 

I knew what I wanted and I was doing things. Um,  To, to get myself there, but I wasn’t.  In every moment. And every  step that I took in this feverish sort of

place to get it done. It was just a very consistent and very intentional. Process of me staying with the goal. And enjoying and acknowledging the little micro goals that I was hitting along the way, because every micro goals that I hit along the way was also growing my belief. It was helping me see, oh, okay. 

You did that. Okay. Now you can do this. Okay. You did this. Okay. You can probably do that too. Okay. How do you know you’re going to do that Sonja ? How do you know? Well, I mean, I did that, so if I do that, I can probably get in, in that and that other thing, I’d probably keep doing this. Thing, right.

You guys, I literally manifested everything for my salon. Like furniture wise. I budgeted about $15,000 just on equipment,  and I literally manifested attracted. And got for free do you hear me? Get for free, about $10,000 worth of the equipment. I think I might have spent like 3000. Dollars of my own money on equipment.  10,000 of it. Literally I got for free.  I got an ovary, which taught me some other things about how I actually manifest, but that’s another, um, episode. I’ll talk about that later, but what I ultimately was able to have the grant opening on my salon in a brand new location.

The location of my salon. was a historic building that had not been anything for like over 30 years. My space. had  been custom renovated to the specifications that I decided that I want for my salon. 

When I was able to reach that goal let me tell you something i had such belief about what I was capable of doing. Not just with the salon, but like, damn. If I felt like I did this whole thing.  Yeah, I can, I can literally do.  What I, what I want to do. Like I can do. What I want to do. I can have things I want to have. I can achieve goals that, that I want for myself. 

I am someone who is worthy of having nice things. I am worthy of having great things. I am someone that people appreciate. I have a talent, a skill set that.  Allows me to take care of myself. I can do challenging things.  And still enjoy my life while I’m doing it. 

I can focus on a goal and I can also take care of myself emotionally at the same time. Like these are all the ways, the different thoughts and the different beliefs I began to have about myself simply by accomplishing my goal of opening my salon. 

And it’s not about just hitting the goal. It’s everything that happens along the way. That allows you, that you go through that, you expand it, how you grow how you overcome, how you perceive all of those things along the way. And hitting those micro goals is what helps your self identity expand and how you build a bigger belief about who you are, what you’re capable of and how you are here and meant to do it in a way that doesn’t require you to compromise your health, compromise your sense of self,  or have to necessarily work hard to get it. Right. And so that one goal. It’s really like a bouquet of mini goals that became the garden of knowing who I am. Remembering who I am seeing who I am and embracing. Who I actually am, how I’m meant to operate. And expanding my self identity. 

I know someone here listening to this. This matter to you. So that’s you. I would love to hear about it. send me a DM. @SonjaThompkins  on either Facebook or Instagram, you can also email me. I would love to hear if this episode impacted you.

Because I want you to know that when you achieve your goal, you’re also expanding your belief about yourself. You are changing your self identity. You have transformed your life and how you go about doing things in your life. 

If you are ready to expand your self identity and you want accountability and help with becoming aligned in your self identity. Book a sales call to learn more about my one-on-one private coaching two day. I would love to be able to assist you with that and equip you with the tools that you’ll have for the rest of your life.  To not only achieve goals, but to expand and grow your self identity in the process. 

You guys thank you so much for being here. Can’t wait to  talk to you next episode. Bye.