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The goals you set and the dreams you cherish are deeply tied to your identity and self-perception.
Who do you think you are?
A shy person who can’t deliver an engaging public speech?
Someone struggling with weight who can’t control their eating habits?
A middle-class individual from a modest alma mater who believes running a successful startup is out of reach?
A single person who fears they’re unworthy of finding a life partner?
An adult stuck in unresolved conflicts with their parents, unable to create a healthier bond?
Our extraordinary potential often lies buried under layers of ordinary and mediocre thinking. It’s there within us—latent, forgotten, or feared.
Yet, while we crave extraordinary success and believe we deserve it, many of us secretly wish it could just happen—without the hard work. We want to get lucky with exams and careers, find people who give us validation, or buy success with privilege.
Why?
Because deep down, we doubt our ability to help ourselves. We don't think we can do it. A person struggling with weight might think they can’t become healthy without expensive diets or surgeries. Someone not from IIT/IIM might believe they can’t run a successful business.
At the root of this struggle lies a rigid attachment to, if I may say so, a mediocre identity. Our habits and patterns stem from how we see ourselves. To break free, we must first create a parallel, powerful identity. The habits and behaviors will follow.
Shift your identity:
From someone struggling with weight to a healthy, active person.
From a middle-class average student to an aspiring entrepreneur.
From a fearful single person to someone ready to give and receive love.
This shift changes everything!
When you think like an entrepreneur, ask yourself:
Will an entrepreneur pass on the blame to others, or will they own it and solve problems?
Will they turn up on time or be late?
How will they dress?
When you think like a fit person:
Will they mindlessly eat pizza when they’re not even hungry?
If they face challenges like eating disorders, will they seek help or stay trapped in old patterns?
When you think like a confident individual in relationships:
Will they let rejection or past experiences define them, or will they embrace vulnerability to build meaningful connections?
Why Focus on Identity Instead of Just Building Habits?
Because life doesn’t always go as planned. Have you seen teams and players who work hard throughout tournaments but fail under pressure? Or the reverse? Take Real Madrid in Champions League Finals or Australia in ICC Tournament Finals—they win often despite bad forms and injuries because they think and act like winners.
Consider Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time. His coach, Bob Bowman, emphasized mental visualization techniques, teaching Phelps to mentally rehearse every possible scenario before a race. This made him unbeatable, even when his goggles filled with water during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Novak Djokovic once said he works on his mindset and presence as much as on his techniques and serves.
The difference often isn’t in preparation or talent but in the winner's mindset. In crucial moments, you need to shift your thinking from ordinary to extraordinary—and eventually, you will become extraordinary.
Do you believe in your extraordinary? Do you want it bad enough?
The Alter Ego Effect
This is where the concept of the Alter Ego comes in—a parallel, more powerful identity you create and embrace. Todd Herman, who coaches elite athletes and business leaders, describes this transformative process.
Start by identifying your "Moments of Impact"—situations or moments in a regular day where you tend to act ordinarily but want to show up as extraordinary.
Next, visualize how your Alter Ego would handle these moments and practice showing up that way. Visualization and planning are your starting points of transformation.
You plan for things you know will happen through anticipation or experience to get used to this new identity. Over time, this new identity gains confidence, handles the unplanned, and achieves things you once thought impossible. It will become you—or you will become it.
The Commoner’s Challenge
Affordability and Self-Help
Unlike elite athletes, most of us don’t have access to expensive coaches or a dedicated support system to focus solely on our growth. We need something that's affordable and doable by ourselves.
Respect for Responsibilities
Our lives are filled with responsibilities—work, family, household chores, and social obligations. Celebrities and athletes have teams to manage these aspects, but we must handle everything ourselves. We need solutions that blend seamlessly into our existing priorities.
The Need for Support
While the Alter Ego Effect works for all scenarios and fields of life, for athletes, it’s different. They work on their mindset after developing their talent and techniques during their younger years, when they can focus purely on training without significant responsibilities. In their teenage years, their environment is centered on learning, with systems supporting their growth.
However, we often aim to change our mindset and tackle bucket lists after retirement, strive to be better parents in our 30s, or seek shifts in our thinking while juggling multiple roles. Support becomes a challenge.
Once athletes become professionals, they are surrounded by peak performers. When Virat Kohli shifted his mindset from a parantha-eating Punjabi boy to the fittest cricketer in India, he was already under Sachin Tendulkar's mentorship and MS Dhoni's captaincy. In contrast, we are often surrounded by mediocrity and naysayers.
To break free from this cycle, we need dreamers and doers to come together as a community and support each other.
The Alter Ego Community
This is where the Alter Ego Community comes in—a framework for self-improvement built on the foundation of a supportive community for ambitious people wanting to achieve extraordinary things. Anchored by the purpose of A Little Love (ALL)—our parent NPO—we aim to create an empathetic world for sustainable coexistence.
We make self-improvement fun and accessible through weekend meetups, events, and trips that seamlessly fit into your daily life.
Our community members don’t just travel to escape mundane routines—they transform their lives. Weekend parties, open mics, social mixers, and dating events combine self-discovery with fun outings, ensuring weekends are not just for chilling but for meaningful change.
What binds a community?
Purpose and Collective Action: Volunteering for causes we care about fosters connection and creates positive identity shifts.
Support and Empowerment: Our community doesn't just support each other—it creates something bigger.
We volunteer for causes such as children’s education and nutrition, women’s empowerment, autism awareness, elderly companionship, and environmental and animal welfare.
You give when you feel enough. The corollary is also true—when you give back, you feel enough. For example, we can overcome our fear of public speaking by teaching in a slum school. We can overcome our body image issues and push ourselves to work out by dance volunteering or sports volunteering. Volunteering helps us feel good about ourselves. It creates a positive identity shift.
Your journey from vision to reality begins here—with you, with your Alter Ego, and the Alter Ego Community. Visit our programs to get started.
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