We’ve all heard the phrase You are what you eat.

If we’re speaking in nutritional terms, yes, you are that cheesesteak, six pack, or ice cream sundae. Or if you err on the healthy side, you can be the chicken salad, protein smoothie, or shrimp fajita.

This common concept can be revamped when analyzing our habits and the identity we want to empower. Consider the gap between what you want and what you’re actually doing to get what you want. Do your actions align with your goals?

For example, if I want to be a writer, yet I spend my writing time scrolling, daydreaming, or engaging my monkey mind, I then become a scroller, a daydreamer, or a monkey. Not a writer.

Say you want to be a better salesperson but spend your time remaining in your comfort zone, fearing rejection, or complaining about the success of others, you’d be a comforter, complainer, or a rejection-fearer. Not a salesperson.

Every team has the same goal of winning the championship.

What separates us from achieving success is the persistence of converting action goals into habits and improving one step at a time. There is a sharpened blade at the end of all that grinding.

In How Champions Think, summarized in a previous post, Dr. Bob Rotella asks if you had a camera that followed you around all day like a reality show, would the camera reveal the identity you want or something else entirely?

Would it see the hard-worker, over-achiever, empathizer, or leader?

Or would it capture the dilly-dallier, coaster, judger, or pretender?

We become our actions. When we strive to reach goals, our behaviors must align with those goals. Action goals steer us toward creating better habits, building the identity we want for ourselves.

Be a runner; not a sleeper-inner. Be an athlete; not a gamer. Be a teacher; not a dictator. Be a parent; not a critic. Be a doer; not a bystander. Be a champion; not an excuse-maker.