Uncharacteristically, I went out and bought a book right off the shelf.
I am 33 pages in, and I have already gotten my money’s worth. Clear suggests that there are 3 layers of behavior change: the outermost layer, OUTCOME, then PROCESS, then IDENTITY. The whole process over outcome was comprehensible. Stop focusing on goals. Instead, focus on process, and seismic change will one day follow. But “Identity” above process? Are we talking about attitude? Have a positive outlook, positive self-image, and you’ll do well? If that’s it, I win… But that wasn’t it.
The foundation of success is the way you see your habits, like losing weight or cessation of smoking. If the cessation of smoking is your goal and someone offers you a cigarette, what do you do? According to Clear, you do NOT say, “No, thanks, I am trying to quit.” WHAT?!?!? Instead, you say, ” No, thank you, I am not a smoker.” To change your life, you have to change your identity. My mind was blown right there. That’s so simple, but had I ever thought about that? Probably not.
It was at that moment that I realized, I am not emulating Katie.
Who’s Katie? My friend Katie is the most put together, intelligent, hardest working young person I’ve ever met. We sat next to each other in our biology courses, and for me, it was the best thing that came out of my NU experience. I made a true friend (which in and of itself is incredible and beyond meaningful), but I also found a mentor. She has helped me in every step along the journey to med school from setting the bar in class, to showing me that it is possible to “beat” the MCAT. She is at the top of her game in everything she does, and you’d never know it; Katie is one of the most humble and kind individuals walking this Earth. She shared her successes with me, her constant advice, her methods, her time, when all I could say, was, “I don’t think I can do this.” Her response, “but you can.”
We have an inside joke in my family, it’s that “Wow, Katie sure is bossy!” 🙂 She is the total opposite of bossy, and we all know that. However, we say that because when Katie makes a suggestion, I make it a requisite. Katie RECOMMENDED that I write drafts of my secondaries early. I turned around and told myself, you MUST write your secondaries early. It was always an iteration of if you want to do well, you MUST go and do this, go and do that.
Truth is, I wanted to emulate her success, to be just like Katie. I wanted to make my parents cry as I broke the news of my MCAT score. I wanted to travel the US to interview at schools I couldn’t have dreamed of as a kid; waiting on acceptance letters and knowing that they would be sent to me, then making my parents cry again when the letters did arrive, having a choice in where I’d end up. Then I read Clear’s book, and I realized it’s not that I want to be Katie, I am Katie.