Why You Keep Becoming The Same Version of You

Have you ever had a moment where you knew exactly what you should do and then you watched yourself do the thing that you've always done? You knew that you didn't need another opinion, but you went ahead and asked five more people anyway. You knew that you wanted to say no, but as soon as you were asked, you said yes. Maybe you knew the post was really good.

Before you published it, you decided to water it down because it felt a little bit scary to put it out there. Or maybe you knew you needed help and someone even offered to help you, but instead you said, no, it's fine. I'll just do it. You ask yourself, why do I keep doing this when I know better?

Welcome to the Unblocked Woman podcast. I'm Amy Sanders. For years, I believed the next level of my life and business would come from a better strategy. Working harder, figuring out that perfect plan.

But eventually, I saw the real truth. The biggest ceiling in our lives is not strategy. It's identity. The patterns we don't see.

The subtle ways we play small. The version of ourselves that we keep defaulting back to even when we know we're capable of more. This podcast is where we bring those patterns into the light. We talk about identity, leadership, growth, and what it actually takes to become the woman who can truly hold the life and business she wants.

No fluff, no performance, just honest conversation about stepping fully into your power. So go ahead and subscribe and follow the show. And remember, the moment you see the pattern, you can finally break it. Have you ever had a moment where you knew exactly what you should do?

And then you watched yourself do the thing that you've always done, which is not what you actually should do. You knew that you didn't need another opinion, but you went ahead and asked five more people anyway. You knew that you wanted to say no to maybe going to your nephew's recital or something like that that you didn't really want to go to. But as soon as you were asked, you said yes.

And then instantly, you started resenting your sister for even asking you because your thought was, well, she knows I'm busy. Maybe you knew the post was really good before you, published it. You decided to water it down, because it felt a little bit scary to put it out there. Or maybe you knew you needed help.

And someone even offered to help you. Someone even said, yes, I can help you. But instead, you said, no, it's fine. I'll just do it.

It's fine. And then after you already said it or done it, or all any of these examples I've given, you ask yourself, why do I keep doing this? And I know better. It can make you feel like you are crazy, because you see yourself doing it.

And it can literally drive you crazy. That is one of the biggest reasons that I teach identity the way that I do. Because knowing better and being patterned differently are two completely different things. And so today, I want to take you through something I've taught before, what I've called the default identity loop.

So I want to take it a whole lot further and deeper today. So if you've heard me talk about it in the past, we're doing a deeper dive. If you haven't, welcome. I'm happy to have you here and that you've chosen this episode to listen to for the first time, because I'm going to give a lot of different examples of how this thing plays out and why it's different than just mindset.

But when you see your loop, seeing it as awareness, but then what? You can be aware all day long, but then what? Like, how do you actually change? That's where the aligned loop comes in.

And once you understand how these two work together, you can start seeing them everywhere. So let's get started. If you've heard me teach this before, the default identity loop, stay with me because I've continually fine-tuned it. And I've watched a lot of people do it.

And I think that it is now in the form that it will be forever. I've simplified it down to the most simple explanation possible. At least I'm hoping. Okay.

So the default identity loop or just the loop, how it goes is there's an experience, there's a meaning, there's a response, a result, and a reinforcement. And I'm going to walk you through each one. So the first one, experience, something happens. That's the experience.

And then you make it mean something. Now, when it comes to the experience, we're not just talking about a circumstance or one event or something that's happening in the now. An experience can be external. It can also be internal.

It can be a myriad of things. But you make it mean something. And that meaning, it shapes how you respond to the experience emotionally, physically, behaviorally, in all of these different ways. And that's your response.

Your response contributes to a result. And here's the piece that I want you to understand that makes this very different from a lot of other bodies of work. That result becomes evidence. And it reinforces something you already believe about yourself or other people or about how life works.

And that's reinforcement. And that's how you respond to the experience. And that's how you respond to the reinforcement. That reinforcement is what it updates your identity.

You carry that reinforced identity into your next experience. So there really isn't a straight line. What it looks like is a loop. You have an identity that you are moving from.

You have an experience. You attach meaning to it. And from there, you have a response, a result, and a reinforcement. But that reinforcement updates your identity.

And that reinforcement is what it updates your identity. And that's why patterns can feel so true. So hopefully you're with me here. If you're not, don't worry.

I'm going to give you so many examples. But the reason why they feel so true is because you aren't just thinking them. It's not just in your head. You're collecting evidence for them and you feel it.

So when it comes to the default loop, it's who I've learned to be. It's the identity that you've practiced so long that you don't have to consciously choose it anymore. It's just what you've practiced. It's just what you know.

You have all this evidence that backs you up. And here's the really important distinction between what I teach and when it comes to identity versus mindset. Identity isn't the fifth step in the loop. It's not like this fifth step where it's like dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.

No. The identity is already there. It's influencing the meaning that you assign to the experience. And then reinforcement feeds the evidence right back into it.

So imagine a woman whose identity says, I have to do everything myself. Imagine that her husband decides to load the dishwasher and he loads it differently than she does. That's the experience. She makes it mean he's doing it wrong.

It'd just be easier to see her if I do it. That's the meaning that she attaches to it. So she gets irritated. She corrects him.

Maybe she eventually takes over. Or maybe once he's done, she goes in after him and fixes it. I bet you know someone that does this. So annoying when you try and help someone and then you see them fixing the way they help you, right?

So what happens? What happens is that he eventually helps less. He's like, it doesn't matter if I help her. She is going to do it her way anyway.

He feels like he can't do anything right. So he literally stops helping her. And the result is, what does she say? She says, see, I knew it.

I really do have to do everything myself. She has reinforced her identity. And then the loop, that default loop, it gets stronger. So this is the part where the aligned loop changes everything.

And I am so excited to talk about it. Because I don't think we ever have on the podcast. So here we go. So here's what I want you to understand.

You don't have to magically become a completely different human before you can change the loop. It's not that hard. All you need is a different rep, meaning repetition. I like to think in workouts and muscles.

So you're fueling your alignment with giving it new evidence, essentially. So the aligned loop looks the same, but the meaning behind it is who I'm becoming. So it's the same loop. You have an experience, you have a meaning, you have a result, or a response result, and then you reinforce it.

But now we're asking a different question. We're asking, which identity is running the loop? And what would create evidence for the woman that I'm becoming instead? I'm going to say that one more time.

Now we ask, which identity is running the loop? And what would create evidence for the woman that I'm becoming instead? So if you go back to our dishwasher experience, let's say that he loads the dishwasher differently. And the old meaning, we already know what that is, right?

So she catches it instead. And she said different. The old meaning was different means wrong, like after a while. And now we're asking, which identity is running the loop?

And what would create evidence for the woman that I'm becoming instead? I have to do everything myself. If I want it done right, I have to do it myself. That's the old meaning.

But now she catches it. And what she thinks instead, or the meaning that she attaches to it, is she doesn't need to fully force herself to believe this is the most beautiful loaded dishwasher that I've ever seen. She doesn't have to go that extreme. By the way, that will feel like a lie, so your identity will not update.

But maybe the aligned meaning is just differently isn't automatically wrong. And then her aligned response could be that she leaves it alone. And maybe she's uncomfortable. And maybe she wants to poke her eyes out with forks because she's like crawling in her skin that it looks a little bit different.

Maybe every cell in her body is like freaking out and wants to rearrange it. But she doesn't. She stays in that discomfort of something new. And the result is someone else contributed.

She didn't have to carry it all. And the reinforcement? The reinforcement is I can receive help without controlling how it happens. That is the identity piece.

Getting evidence that this can become her new normal. But look, she did have to feel uncomfortable seeing that the dishwasher was loaded differently. And guess what? The dishes still got cleaned.

It still worked out. And now she can see that she has a little bit of evidence that people can help her, that she can be supported. So I have a bunch of examples because at the end of this episode, I want you to be able to come away from this and do it. Understand it, apply it, do it.

Because that is the goal. Okay, so the examples that I've brought are ones that I see all the time in my coaching. The first one is self-trust. So the experience is that you make a decision.

Maybe it's about your business or your home or something. But you make a decision and someone questions it. You attach the meaning to it that maybe I got it wrong. Someone's questioning it.

Maybe I'm wrong. So your response, you start ruminating the decision. You reopen the decision. You ask three or four more people about this decision.

And the result is that you're more confused than you were before when you had decided to make it. And your reinforcement is, see, I can't trust myself. And now that updated identity, it's updated. If we were to move from an aligned place, instead of the old meaning, the aligned meaning might be that her opinion is information.

It doesn't have to become permission. I don't have to do what she says. From there, you can check your own reason and don't reopen the decision unless there's actually new information that supports the direction you actually want to go. Your result is that you move forward.

And then your reinforcement is that you can make decisions that you want to make. You can make decisions without requiring certainty from everyone around you. And that is how self-trust gets built because your identity sees that you can handle trusting yourself. The next example I have is people-pleasing, because let's be honest, a lot of women struggle with this.

I call myself a recovering people-pleaser. I'm always recovering. I'm not quite there. But people-pleasing, we never want to disappoint anyone, right?

So the experience would be that you disappoint someone when you say no. And the meaning you attach to it is that if she's upset, you must have done something wrong. So you explain things like crazy. Maybe you sent her like a really long text.

You soften. You apologize multiple times. You might even reverse the no. And your result is that that boundary that you're trying to hold, disappears.

And it reinforces your thought that my needs hurt people. I disappointed someone. My needs hurt people. So if we were to come this exact same scenario, someone is disappointed when you say no, the aligned loop might be that you attach a different meaning to it.

And that meaning could be that someone could be disappointed in me, and that does not mean that I'm wrong. Your response is that you hold the no kindly. She still might be disappointed, and that will be your result. And that's important.

The aligned loop doesn't mean that you manipulate reality into giving you the result you want. The aligned loop means that you're aligned with your choice. And as you stay in that, even if it's uncomfortable, you reinforce your new identity of I can let someone have feelings without abandoning myself and my needs. And that's your new evidence for this updated identity.

Sometimes the work can be really uncomfortable. But as you hold to it, it does get easier. I have a few more examples I want to go through before we shift a little bit. The first one is visibility.

I know we have a lot of entrepreneurs that tune in. And part of a business in this day and age is being visible, especially online. So let's say that your experience, this, this also goes, you don't have to be an entrepreneur for this, this goes for really anything. But say that the experience is that you want to post something that you are really close to that you really believe in.

But that post feels vulnerable and scary. Your default meaning from the past, remember, defaults like what you've learned to be could be that people might disagree with you. And so your response as that default identity comes up is like, well, I'm just going to water it down, I'm going to make it fluffy, or I'm going to just make it sound really, really great so that I don't get any hate from anybody. When you do that, you reinforce the identity of being fully seen isn't safe.

And so once you reinforce that identity, the next time you go to do it, you're going to show up in the same way because you have more evidence of that. So if you were to move from an aligned place, the aligned meaning to going visible could be something as easy as disagreement isn't the same thing as rejection. The haters going to hate, right? And also, there's going to be people that see what you post, and they're really going to be aligned with it.

Now, if you're one of those people, by the way, comment, like it, do something because in today's world, heaven help us. That algorithm kills you every single day. And when people comment and like my stuff, I'm like, thank you, that helps more people see it. So if this is you, like, comment, share, whatever, when you see things you like, because it helps people with this.

Anyway, so back to this, the aligned response was post the cleaner, sensible version, the cleaner that you actually want to post without watering it down. And the result will be that some people like it and some people don't. And that's okay. Because as you do that, you're growing that muscle, you're growing that evidence that you can be seen without universal approval.

The people that are meant to see you will be able to find you because they will totally jive with what you put out there with your flavor. The next one is receiving help. So the experience would be that someone offers to help you. And your default meaning, the thing that you're used to saying is that I should be able to handle this myself.

And so you respond to them and you're like, you know what, I'm good, I can handle it. I should be able to do this. No worries. And your result is that you stay overloaded.

You have too much, you're carrying too much. And you reinforce that identity that I'm the one that has to carry everything. And you're the one that has to carry everything. And you're the one that has to carry I see receiving help.

I see this one a lot in my coaching as well. That it's somehow women think that when we ask for help, that that might mean that we're weak, that we can't actually hold it. And it couldn't be further from the truth. And when you ask for help, you're actually giving someone else the opportunity to serve you, which also builds deeper connection.

Because when you ask for help, or let's reverse this, actually. I'm going to come back to what I'm saying in a minute. But when someone asks you to help them, I would bet that most of the time, you feel honored, because they were vulnerable enough to ask you. And so you're like, yes, I would love to help you.

That's very different than when you feel like you have to or when you have been doing way too much people pleasing. I'm not talking about that. But I'm talking about when someone needs help, and they think about you and they call you. And you feel honored, right?

Well, when you don't ask for help, you aren't giving someone else the opportunity to say yes. So bringing it back to this, if you reinforce the identity that I'm the one that has to carry everything, you're going to continually be someone that people don't think needs help. Your aligned meaning could be that being capable doesn't mean that I'm required to do everything. We don't.

We're actually not even meant to. If you think about the world over however many thousands of years it's been, I don't know. People had communities and tribes and places where they could belong so that you didn't have to do everything. Sometimes I think we sit in our houses and we just think we have to do everything when there's people that are willing to help us if we just raise our hand and say, hey, help me.

So anyway, bringing it back to the aligned response, you say, I don't have to carry everything. I don't have to carry everything. You say, yes, thank you. I would love your help.

And your result is that you have support. You see that people are willing to help you and you reinforce the new identity of I can receive help without becoming weak or dependent. Those are very different things. I'm going to give you one more.

I have like five more, but I'll give you one more. Because I think this one is really important. So I love this one because I feel like it ties really into worthiness. And I know a lot of women feel like they are not worthy of whether it's income or impact or visibility or whatever it is.

So let's say that the experience is that you have something that goes really, really well. You have a launch that just knocks it out of the park. Or you have a hard conversation with your friend or a partner or something and it goes really, really well. I'm going to bring it back to the launch because I'm going to keep you there with money.

So let's say that the launch goes really, really well. You do something at work. It goes really, really well. And you make more money.

You get the opportunity. You have the best month ever. Your default identity could be, now I have to keep this up. And so your response is that you work harder.

You raise the bar immediately. You raise the bar. You brace for it to disappear. Like, this can't stay.

I did this, but I don't think that I can do it again because that default identity is running. And your result is that success, success feels exhausting. And you reinforce that default identity of, see, when I get more, when I have more, when things go well for me, more always costs me something. So if we were to look at it from, the aligned meaning that something goes really well for you and you start to make more money, the aligned meaning would be something along the lines of, I am allowed to let this be good.

And you move from that place. So you receive it. You celebrate it. You keep your existing standards without manufacturing more pressure, new pressure.

You just keep things the same. And that result is that success has somewhere to land because you're not stressed out of your mind. You're not pushing against the grind. It has somewhere to land and you reinforce that you can have more without abandoning yourself to keep it.

That is the worthiness ceiling in real life. I attached it to money because a lot of people struggle with that, but you can attach it to your relationship. You can attach it to whatever you want. The idea here is that you don't have to fully believe the new identity before you practice it.

And I think this is really important. So I'm not asking you to lie to yourself. And I think this is where a lot of women get tripped up is that they think, but I don't really feel like a woman that trusts myself yet. Well, of course you don't.

You haven't collected enough evidence yet. You have all of this evidence of what's worked for you in the past to keep you in that default. Identity. You have all of the evidence in the world.

The response can come before the belief. You can hold that boundary and you will still feel guilty. You can have both of those together happening at the same time. You can make the decision while still feeling uncertain.

You can accept help while still wanting to take over and do it right. Do it the way that you want. You can post that vulnerable post and you can still feel totally exposed. You can receive a compliment while part of you wants to deflect it and like act like it didn't happen or let someone else have the praise.

And every time you do, you're giving your brain another piece of evidence that maybe this is who I am now. Your brain is always seeking the evidence, right? Like you're your identity, who you really are already has it because she is already, I talk about becoming her, but you already are her. But your brain likes to show you how to stay safe.

So you want to give your brain the evidence that it needs. Maybe this is who I am now. And it's not because you've affirmed it a million times saying the affirmation over and over and over and over and over. But it's because you lived it.

Have you done the affirmation where you write it every single day, 15 times every single day for, 12 months. And if you write it enough, then you're going to believe it because you're tricking your subconscious mind. There is some truth to that. But if you don't actually believe it because you're not actually living it, that ego part of your brain is going to continually be like, nope, she's a liar.

She is a liar. The woman you're becoming needs evidence, not just affirmations. She needs to see the evidence. She needs to see that this is who I am now and it's okay to be here.

Even through the discomfort, I stay here and I make sure I look around me. Yep, I'm still okay. So this is what I want to actually have you walk away with. When you notice yourself getting activated this week, remember that when I say experience, I'm not taking it down to like one certain circumstance.

When you have an experience, you have a myriad of different emotions. I don't want you to immediately fix it. Instead, there are five questions that are going to help you remember the loop. Maybe you write these down.

Maybe you re-listen to this episode, but they're going to help you remember it so that you can run the loop. So the first question is, ask yourself what happened. That's your experience. What happened here?

The meaning is, what did I make this mean? The third question is, how did I respond? That's your response. The fourth question is, what did that create?

Which is the result. And the fifth question is, what did that reinforce? Reinforcement. The question after that, that I want you to ask yourself is, which identity is running the loop?

Is it the one that I've learned to be or is it the one that I'm becoming? And if it is the one that you've learned to be, if it's the default loop, don't shame it. Instead, ask, what's one response I could choose right now? That would create the evidence for the woman that I am becoming.

I'm not asking for 10 things here. I'm asking you to give yourself one response, just one little rep for you to move yourself in the right direction. So those questions, one more time, to run the loop is, what happened? What did I make it mean?

How did I respond? What did that create? What did that reinforce? Which identity is running the loop?

Who I've learned to be or who I'm becoming? I think so many women are trying to change their lives while unknowingly, continually, continuing to collect evidence for the same identity. And that's why change can feel so frustrating. And that's why you can feel like you're stuck.

Because yeah, you do know better. You're reading the books. You're listening to podcasts. You're listening to the news.

You're you've done therapy. You've done coaching. You've listened to all kinds of things, right? Like, it's not like you're dumb.

You understand yourself. But understanding the pattern is awareness. Practicing something different is alignment. And eventually, when you have enough of those aligned reps, that creates enough evidence that what used to require conscious effort starts to fail.

And that's why change can feel so frustrating. And that's why change can feel more natural. Starts to feel like, yeah, this is actually me. That's the identity change.

That's when things shift. So the goal isn't to wake up tomorrow and be a completely different human that doesn't have any, any patterning. All the goal is to ask yourself, which identity is running the loop? Is it the old one?

Or is it the new one? You see the loop, you interrupt it. Then you move from an aligned loop. And you do it one rep at a time.

Just like you go into the gym one rep at a time. You do it one rep at a time. And over time, you get stronger and stronger in that identity. And then it updates.

Every single time you give it evidence, it loves the new evidence. And eventually, that woman that you've been practicing becoming is the woman that you just know yourself to be. And I don't even know that I love the word eventually, because that feels like it can be very far away. It doesn't have to be far away, because you just be her now.

You move from her now. Your future version of yourself, how would she act? Be her now. And sometimes I understand that the hardest time to see the loop is when you're actually inside it.

And that's why I created the mirror. So when you feel like you're in a loop again, go try the mirror. The mirror is fabulous. It will show you your pattern in real time.

It will help you with a clean aligned move. So go try that out. Also, if this helped you, make sure that you subscribe, you like, you share, you review it. Because as you do, it helps our impact grow and it helps touch more lives.

And that is the goal here of the podcast. So with that, take care. I'll be back here next week. I hope you have a fabulous week.

Bye. that you keep repeating or simply say, here's what's happening. Help me see what I can't see. The mirror knows your patterns, your enneagram, your human design, and it remembers the work you've already done.

So the reflection is personal to you. Find the mirror in the show notes or at amysanders. co forward slash mirror. And until next time, see it, shift it and become magnetic.