Your Calendar Will Reveal If You're in a Doer or Leader Identity (And the Subconscious Beliefs That Are Keeping You There) [ep. #280]
Your calendar is full. Your days are packed. You are grafting. And yet your business still feels like it's running you instead of the other way around. That's not a time management problem. That's your leader identity trying to get your attention underneath a pile of doing.
In today's episode, I'm breaking apart the doer identity, the part of you that was built to be the reliable one, the one who got things done, the one who never let anything slip, and why that same part is now the ceiling you keep hitting. I'm talking about the subconscious beliefs that made "busy" feel like "worthy" and why no amount of discipline will fix what is actually an identity shift waiting to happen.
I'm also sharing exactly what your calendar is revealing about your CEO mindset right now (whether you like it or not, it's basically your subconscious document) and I'm giving you four things to do this week, starting with how you open your laptop tomorrow morning, that start building your CEO identity in real time.
This one's going to land. And it might sting a little.
Topics covered on Leader Identity:
What is your calendar telling you about your leader identity right now
The subconscious beliefs that made "doing more" feel like the only way to be valued
The difference between a doer who fills every gap in their calendar vs a leader who protects CEO space on purpose
How to start building your CEO identity even if you don't have any team members
The one identity shift that changes how you show up to your business every single day
Why your CEO mindset is measured by intention, not by how many tasks you completed
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Related episodes you may enjoy:
Quote:
"Your calendar is not just a scheduling tool. It's a subconscious document. It's a map of what your identity believes your time is worth." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] All right, your calendar's full. Your days are packed and you are working incredibly hard. You have been for years. I know you, right? And yet somewhere, underneath all of that busyness, all of that doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, there's a version of you that knows that she's not actually leading this business. She's running it. And those two things are not the same.
So by the end of this episode, you are going to understand exactly why your calendar or your day looks the way that it does. We're going to have a look at discipline, time management, and yes, they can fix it to a certain extent, but it hasn't given you what you actually needed. And we're going to have a look at the specific identity shift that changes everything.
[00:00:47] Hello, my lovely lady. Hello, beautiful lady. Welcome back to The Subconscious Expert.
So let's start with the doer identity and where it came from. I want to introduce you to the doer identity, and as I talk about this at the beginning, none of this is a criticism. I was the doer. I was the doer. It's not a flaw. It's a really wonderful trait to have.
[00:01:10] But when we look at this doer identity, it is a subconscious program that was built to keep you safe at some point in your life, and it's worked. It has worked. It has kept you praised, probably valued. I would hazard a guess loved and secure and seen.
You were the one who got things done, weren't you? You were the reliable one. You were the one that people could count on. You were the doer. And by God, it felt good. I fall and fell into this camp a lot.
[00:02:03] Every job I had, I had to be the best, quickest doer there was. I remember when I had graduated from Performing Arts College and you obviously don't get many jobs in the performing arts world. So I went straight to working front of house at Les Mis, and I worked front of house for Les Mis on the bar for quite a while, actually.
And I remember this drive within me that I had to be the best bar server there ever was. I had to clean the quickest, I had to serve the best, partly because I just love doing a good job, but partly this kind of doer identity.
[00:02:52] And I remember the people, especially in the bar, it worked very differently to if you were actually front of the house with the programmes and stuff. Once you finish the interval, so once the interval's gone, if anyone's watched Les Mis, it's a very long show as well. But once the interval's finished, you've tidied up your station, you got to go home.
And me and my friend who were always together always went home the earliest, always went home first, because quite frankly, I was like, "I have to do the best, be the best, the best cleaner."
[00:03:15] And people used to get pissed off, right? So I too had this subconscious program, let me tell you. And my subconscious and your subconscious have filed that away as the formula. Do more, be more available, work hard, never let anything slip, don't show that things are going wrong, stay visible. All of this kept running that program.
[00:03:38] And then I came into business and I built a business on top of that, right? Which actually, a lot of you do, which is why you are incredible. It's why you are so excellent. It's why your clients love you. It's why the results are there. That doer identity got you here.
And I really, really want us to clap that doer identity right now because it deserves so much credit for everything you've built. We kind of need that scrappy doer energy when we first start our business.
[00:04:01] However, when we get to a point, the doer identity almost starts to become a block on where you're going next, because this doer identity has a ceiling, and that ceiling is you.
What the Doer Identity Is Costing You Now
[00:04:31] And when we look at it, when you look at the behaviour, the doer identity knows how to fill a calendar, doesn't she? Knows how to fill a calendar full to the bloody brim. It knows how to be across every decision, available for every question. It knows how to work until 12:00 AM, start again at 6:00 AM, and you kind of tell yourself that this is just what it takes.
And what it has never been built to know is what to protect your calendar for. That brings me nicely onto the leader identity, and that's truly what I want to spend today's podcast episode building, because when we're staying in the doer identity, there's quite a lot that it starts to cost you.
[00:05:21] And that's what I have conversations with clients about where I'm like, "I love this part of you. I love this part of me. I love the doer, but it has a place and it has a time, and it can't be the only identity that is leading your business when you start to scale. It can't be. It just can't happen."
[00:05:40] The doer identity, when we look at it and when you play into it, it is quite exhausting. And we know back-to-back days are unsustainable. We know that being the bottleneck of your business, one of the main things that people come to me for to work on because they know they have become the bottleneck, we know that becomes a problem.
And to be honest, we have known all of this for a very long time, but knowing it and feeling the full weight of what it's costing you are two different things.
[00:06:04] So just have a little ponder. When did you have a full morning to actually think? When was that? When did you last have a full morning and space and not to respond or produce or be needed by someone, but to actually sit with your business and think about where it's going, think about what it needs from you right now. When did you actually carve out time or take time to do that without feeling guilty for doing it?
[00:06:55] When did you last make a decision from genuine clarity rather than from literally the bottom of an overly full day where your capacity, your brain cells and every bit of energy has already gone out the window? When did you last feel like a leader? A leader in the space, a leader in your business, rather than this hardest working person going, "Here I go and this is gonna work because I'm working so hard."
[00:07:25] That is the true cost of keeping yourself in the doer identity. And again, I just want to preface, we love that part of you. I love that part of me, and there is still space and time for it in your business. But when we look at it, the doer identity does cost you time and energy. It costs your thinking.
[00:07:47] Quite frankly, more than anything, and this is truly what I found, it costs your creativity. That strategic clarity that your business needs from you at this level, because you're so busy running the business and in the business that you have literally no space left to actually lead it.
[00:08:11] That is the ceiling that you keep hitting. And again, when we look at all of the handbrakes that I've been talking about, I spoke about that on a recent podcast episode, I'll pop it in the show notes, the three handbrakes that I see, but the income level that you can't seem to stay above, or the results that feel really inconsistent no matter how hard you work, that ceiling, when we look at it, is capacity. And capacity is a direct result of an identity that is built for doing rather than leading.
The Difference Between a Doer Identity and a Leader Identity
[00:08:48] So this doer versus leader, I want to make it practical. When I talk about the leader identity, that might look like having a team and delegating and having a director of operations and running a company with 20 people in, 100%. It could look like that.
[00:09:00] However, the leader identity is a feeling, so you almost don't need one single team member yet for you to step into this. I'll talk into both, but it is really the way you show up in your own business every single day. Call it your leader identity, your CEO identity, whatever resonates with you. It's the version of you that decides how the day goes before it has a chance to decide for her.
[00:09:22] So if we look at the doer identity, she might start by opening up Instagram, opening up her client messages, opening up her inbox, responding to whatever is the loudest right now. "Oh my God, full reaction, this is what I've got to be in right now."
The leader identity starts the day by deciding what matters most and doing that first.
[00:09:47] The doer identity fills every single gap in the calendar because we can't have space, we can't have ease. Hell no. That's unsafe. That's unproductive. I'm not doing enough.
The leader identity is going to protect space because she knows that space is where her best thinking, her clearest decisions and her most creative work actually lives.
[00:10:26] The doer identity, she's measuring a good day on how much she's done or not done, right? The leader identity measures a good day by whether the thing that actually mattered got moved forwards.
The doer identity? Let's say yes to everything because saying no feels like letting everyone down. The leader identity knows that every yes to something unimportant is a no to herself or to something that matters.
[00:11:00] The doer identity is reactive, responding to the day as it comes to her. The leader identity is intentional. She's really deciding how the day goes before it has a chance to decide for her, which is what I see happening so often.
Now, like I said, you do not need a single person in your team to start leading. You don't have to have hit a certain revenue level, have a certain amount of clients, have built something impressive enough to justify it.
[00:11:22] The leader identity is available for you right now in the way that you open your laptop in the morning. In the decisions that you make about what gets your first hour of the day, in the boundaries you hold, in the way you carry yourself through your own business days. It is a feeling and it's yours the moment that you decide it is.
Your Calendar Is a Subconscious Document
[00:11:57] So we're going to have a look externally. I want you to look at your calendar for this week. I work very closely with my clients' calendars. They tell me a lot about their subconscious. I just want you to look at your calendar for this week, really, really look at it.
For me, yes, it's a scheduling tool. It's also a subconscious document. For me, it's a map of what your identity believes your time is worth, what it believes you are allowed to protect it from, what actually happens when you show up or not show up to your diary with the 10,000 decision fatigue decisions that you've tried to make because you don't know what you're actually doing day to day.
[00:12:37] Every reactive morning for me is data. Every evening you've worked when you said that you weren't going to work is data. Every time you sit down to do the important thing and end up doing everything else is data. So you can watch and see and view your own data.
[00:13:02] What is your calendar telling you about what your subconscious beliefs are right now? Does it believe that you're allowed to have uninterrupted thinking time? Does it believe that your creativity is worth protecting? Does it believe you are someone who decides how her time is spent?
[00:13:25] Until the identity shift happens, your calendar will keep rebuilding itself in the same image of the doer. You can block out a CEO day, a CEO morning, you'll have three client calls in there by Tuesday. I know you will. You can decide that you're not checking X, Y, Z until 10:00 AM, and you will be in your inbox by 7:15 AM sharp.
[00:13:49] You can set the intention for the day and have it completely derailed before lunch. The calendar is the symptom. The identity is always the cause. And we want to have a look at the cause.
How to Start Stepping Into Your Leader Identity
[00:14:18] So let's put a couple of practicalities with this to start stepping into this leader identity, this CEO mindset, because it is an energy, it is a feeling, and things start to flow from that.
The first thing I want you to do is look at how you start your day tomorrow. Before you open your inbox, if that's the kind of thing you do, before you check your phone, before you respond to anything, I want you to decide the one thing that actually matters, the thing that would move your business forward if you did it and nothing else. And I want you to, as uncomfortable as that might feel, do that first. I literally want you to protect that first.
[00:14:42] The second thing that I want you to do is I just want you to start to notice every time you catch yourself saying "I should be doing more. I should be, I should be, I should be." That is the doer identity talking.
And again, like we said, the leader identity measures her worth by the intention, by the clarity, by whether she showed up to her business with purpose. It's not the volume of how much you got done or didn't get done. Quite frankly, you set out to do a lot of things and you get nothing done because you've been clicking around a hundred tabs anyway. But just really notice where that "should" is coming from, that intentionality.
[00:15:36] The next thing I want you to do is build into your calendar one protected block into your week and that is a thinking block. A space block. There's a client that I'm working with right now and space is the start of her equation for her to get into creativity and have that energy. We need space.
[00:16:06] Space is a good thing. Although it might not feel like it, space is a good thing. An hour where you sit with your business from the leader seat, from the head of the table in the boardroom. Where are we going? What do we need? What decisions have been needing my full attention? That's the most important work you will do all week because that's what's moving the needle.
Do you actually know what moves the needle in your business? Have that protected block. Call it your CEO identity block, call it whatever resonates with you. If you want more than an hour, good, stretch yourself.
[00:16:32] And then lastly, what I want you to do is start really catching the reactive moments. The times that you pivot away from what you planned because something else happened, or the times that you check your phone whilst you are in really deep work, or the times that you get to the end of the day and the day's taken over so much that you literally haven't even had a chance to know how you would have led it. Just name it.
[00:17:17] "Okay, I'm being the doer right now." Call it out and then I want you to choose differently. Even in a very small way, that choice is the identity shift happening in real time. And you can see and you can show and you can repeat and you can create evidence around this leader identity. What does that look like, feel like to you?
[00:17:42] That's an important part of the work. I'm not talking about it specifically in this podcast episode, but really have a look at, "Okay, I'm being the doer right now. What would actually happen if I stepped into the leader right now?" Change it in your body, change your physical body, change the way that you're viewing things, change your glasses, and then choose differently.
[00:18:06] The leader identity really gets built in the small moments. Really, really small moments. That is exactly what happened to me. I didn't wake up one day and go, "No, I'm the leader of my business." It is in the moments where you're deciding to protect your morning or do the important thing before even the urgent one or carry yourself through your own business even when the results aren't the way that you want them to look, for example.
[00:18:40] So really start to have a look at how we can shift from being the doer to being the leader. And quite frankly, what I will say is you'll still work hard. Business means and takes hard work. I will never, ever, ever not believe and say that. It does. It truly does. But it depends where the hard work is coming from.
[00:19:03] Is it coming from intentionality where you can switch off and you can take down time and you can be really intentional in the hours that you have? Or is it being driven from these old stories and subconscious beliefs and habits and ways that you're doing it because you've got to keep working and we've got to, like that's the only way. Where's that coming from?
[00:19:21] And remember, the doer identity is powerful. It's capable of extraordinary things. And I really meant that word then. It really is powerful. And I really say to my clients when I'm working on this, we're not getting rid of that part of you. It is still a beautiful part. It's what's driving that part that counts.
[00:19:44] And you are at a point now where your business needs this extraordinary leading. I want you to step into that leader identity. I want you to know what you're protecting your energy for, where you're going, what you're doing. The doer identity knows how to fill a calendar, knows how to work till whatever time. The leader identity with that CEO mindset knows what to protect and why.
[00:20:13] You already know which one your business needs more of right now, so I want you to go and give it to her. I hope you've enjoyed today's podcast episode, and I'll see you on the next one.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!