When you're no longer who you used to be, but not yet who you're meant to be

You walked away from your old self, but you had no idea you'd end up... here.

When you work up the audacity to pursue the life you know you were meant to live, you’ll eventually land in the “in-between phase.” It’s the uncomfortable, messy middle where you’re not who you used to be, but not yet who you need to be for your next level.

It’s the space where a lot of people give up and go back to the familiar hell they just left, because the uncertainty of the in-between brought challenges they didn’t expect. They thought it would be easier. They thought it wouldn’t take so long. They thought they wouldn’t lose so much. They thought everyone would go with them to the other side. They took their eyes off the light at the end of the tunnel — the life they were called to — and focused on the darkness around them — the pain of shedding their old self — and they gave up.

But few of us dare to keep going. The few who, though we occasionally lose sight of what's on the other side because of the painful process, always eventually put our gaze towards the outcome and not the process. The few who have made it past the halfway mark, where turning back is not an option — when our old selves are so far behind us it would be harder to go back even if we wanted to.

As someone who went through that process, kept going, and made it to the other side, if you’re at this point right now, I’m going to tell you the way out.

This is the story of my journey through the in-between phase and how I got out of it. And how you can get out of it too.

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I feel different, like I’m not “myself.”

About a year into podcasting, I started feeling different — like I wasn’t “myself.” I felt like I was changing, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint when the changes started or what exactly was going on. I just started feeling more out of place than usual in my personal life. Sometimes I’d even have these ‘out of body’ experiences where I would be somewhere physically, but mentally I’d go into this ‘observer mode’ where the volume around me would turn down, and I’d look around and think to myself, “What am I doing here?” “I’m not supposed to be here.”

The things I once enjoyed, I couldn’t enjoy them anymore, and I didn’t know why. It was like my taste was being refined unbeknownst to me. I was changing without my permission or awareness. I wouldn’t notice until I’d go back to something familiar but meet it with an unfamiliar feeling — like I had ‘outgrown’ it energetically, but I mentally hadn’t caught up yet. It’s like my being knew something my mind didn’t, and it communicated that through discomfort.

My interactions with people started changing — some of the conversations I had entertained before were no longer appealing. They now drained me. And since certain interactions were tied to certain people, I started growing distant from them — not physically or intentionally, but energetically. I didn’t know how to explain it because I wasn’t consciously choosing this dissociation — I was at the mercy of it. Even when I fought it and returned to “my old self,” it felt different.

I’m not even sure when who I was became “my old self” — I just no longer resonated with some of the things I loved, tolerated, and thought made me who I “am.” It was like who I “am” expired without any forewarning and handed me the notice through an unnerving discomfort I felt whenever I tried to return to my “old life.”

While this was going on, I kept releasing episodes every week on my podcast and sharing the lessons I was learning throughout my life. After all, that’s what my podcast is about, so I had plenty of content.

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I’ve come too far to turn back now… but where exactly am I?

I submitted to the process of shedding my old self, quite frankly, because I had no choice. And eventually, I arrived at a place where I could consciously recognize that the parts of me I once clung to at the beginning of this phase were no longer a part of who I was. I’d accepted it and let it go. But there was a big problem now… I wasn’t the version of me I wanted to become yet. I had a funeral for my old self, not realizing I hadn’t stepped into my new self yet, so now I was in this in-between phase.

This god-forsaken in-between phase. It felt like I closed the door on my old self, and when I turned around, expecting to immediately walk into my new life, I was surrounded by pitch black with a bright light in the distance, representing my next level. The only problem was that the more I walked towards the light, the more it felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. The light didn’t feel any closer.

And I tried. I tried so hard. I ran, I walked, I kicked, I screamed, I prayed, I fasted, I planned, I strategized, I asked for help, and when it felt like I had nothing left, I still CRAWLED.

But I was still there. Still stuck in the middle. I can’t go back to what I left because the door is now so far off in the distance behind me that I can’t see it in the darkness. The only way out is through the light — my next level — but I have no idea how far off that glimmer of light really is. But it’s my only option, so I keep walking towards it.

Discouraged, but still walking. Hurt, but still walking. Disappointed, but still walking. Knowing that the people I thought would be there with me won’t be, but still walking.

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I’m doing it, but why isn’t it working?

How could this be? How could I give up who I was for the promise of better, and better constantly seems like it’s just out of reach? Like a carrot being dangled over my head. Like I’m being breadcrumbed. Like someone is playing a sick joke on me.

But I gave up everything. I believed. I was disappointed every time I had to pivot because it didn’t work, but I still believed. How could I still be here?

And now I’m exhausted. Now my hope feels like a tiny spark that keeps going out. I spend more time and energy reigniting it now than I do walking.

I’m still posting episodes — still “locked in” and putting in the work. Still showing up despite feeling discouraged, because what choice do I have?

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Something’s different… I think I arrived.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened, because it didn’t happen the way I thought it would. I thought I would finally walk up to the light and step into that next level, and there would be confetti everywhere, and I would get all of these “things” to validate and celebrate my arrival. But it didn’t happen that way.

My arrival didn’t look like external validation. It looked like me being the version of myself who’s already in the light. It looked like confidently talking about my show instead of shrinking back and acting like it was a “little side hustle.” It looked like being met with circumstances, relationships, and triggering situations that aligned with my old self, and showing up as the new, emotionally regulated version of myself who turned them down because I knew my worth. It looked like making decisions that aligned with my new self, even though it was uncomfortable and plagued with uncertainty, versus choosing the familiar hell that came with my old self. It looked like giving myself permission to have higher standards and new boundaries to protect my new self, even when things were good — but they weren’t good enough. It looked like erasing the need to justify, explain, or seek permission to show up as my new self, and allowing people to sit in their discomfort and not shrink myself.

I learned that I had perceived the in-between phase all wrong. The light that I saw in the distance while I was in that dark, in-between phase, was a reminder of who I needed to become in the messy middle. The path out wasn’t through crawling my way to that light; it was through becoming the version of myself that that light represented — by thinking, feeling, deciding, and acting like her. Each aligned action made the light brighter, illuminating the room little by little, until I fully became her and stepped into the light.

The solution wasn’t crawling or strategizing my way to the light as the old version of myself. In fact, the reason my hope (or that spark carrying me through the darkness) kept burning out is because I let the messy middle dictate my new identity and put me in survival mode. The more I let my external circumstances dictate how I showed up, the more I lost sight of who I was meant to be and made decisions that represented survival instead of my new self.

But when I learned to let my new self prevail no matter the circumstances, the room was fully illuminated.

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How to leave the in-between phase

Once I learned that I could put in a lot of hard work and effort and still be stuck, I realized that strategy and consistency alone weren’t enough to help me step into my next level. So I added an extra layer (the most important layer, actually) to my overall strategy — the inner work tied to shifting my identity to align with the version of myself required for my next level. That changed everything for me.

You see, when I was struggling to grow my show and hit some of my other goals, I was showing up as the old version of myself who was doing the thing consistently, but not as the version it required for it to work.

For example, I posted episodes every week for over a year when I started, but that version of me had a fear of being seen and perceived, so I subconsciously didn't want it to grow 'too much.' I also, despite my passion, talked about it like it was merely a hobby every time it came up in conversation. I thought I was 'protecting my goals' from people who could plant doubt, or who may not see it as a big deal. But in reality, that was probably only 5% of the reason. The truth is, I didn't truly believe in it yet. I didn't really understand how it 'fit' into my life, considering I had spent the last 5 years on an accounting and finance track and amassed financial success and credibility in that path. I was new to the podcast space, and my identity — and worth, unknowingly — was already tied to finance, so anything I did outside of that felt like a side gig versus something I could take seriously.

The in-between phase was where I broke all of that off of me and did the inner work to remove the real problem that stood between me and the light — an identity gap.

An identity gap is the distance between the current version of you and the version of you who has the life you want. The version of you working toward the goal, and the version of you who actually has it, aren’t the same person yet.

And you’ll never outpace your identity. You can’t outwork it or override it with strategy. It doesn’t matter how much you beg, plead, strategize, work hard, push harder, or pray. If your identity contradicts your goal — if you have contradicting beliefs, patterns, stories, and experiences embedded in your subconscious — no amount of hard work, strategy, or effort will override it. You will always act in alignment with your programming. And if you exceed the invisible threshold it created, you’ll sabotage your way back down to it.

If you’re currently in the in-between phase and you’re going through it right now, the solution is to close your identity gap.

Since there’s no one-size-fits-all specific problem that we all have, in my recent episode, I broke down how to start finding the blocks in your identity gap that’s keeping you from your goals. Make sure you tune in on your next walk or drive to work if you prefer audio or watch in on YouTube.

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We think it’s all about the goal, but it’s not.

Sometimes we think it’s all about that goal we have in mind, but it’s not. We think we’re building something, but we don’t realize it’s also building us. When I dared to be obedient to start my podcast, I was only focused on the podcast and what producing episodes would entail. I later realized that it wasn’t just about the podcast.

The decision to start the podcast, and thus step into the life and path I was called to, would affect every other area of my life. Because it wasn’t just about putting out episodes every week, the version of myself required to take the podcast to the next level would have to show up in every other aspect of my life. So the in-between phase was like the training ground or “backstage” where I had to develop into that version of myself required to come out on stage. It was the grace of God to train me up into who I needed to be to sustain the desires He placed in my heart.

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If you’re reading this and something in you recognizes this story — if you’ve been in that dark, in-between phase and you can’t figure out why you’re still there despite giving everything to your goals… I want you to hear this:

It’s not because you’re not working hard enough. It’s not because your goal is too big or the timing is off. It’s because the version of you doing all that work is still operating from an identity that wasn’t built for where you’re going. And for a lot of high achievers, that identity was shaped by years of performing for other people’s expectations, staying on the pedestal, and building a version of yourself rooted in achievement and approval rather than who you actually are. That’s what makes the in-between so exhausting. You’re not just trying to close a gap between where you are and where you want to be. You’re trying to do it while still carrying all of that.

The moment I stopped trying to outwork that and started actually dismantling it, everything shifted. If you’re ready to do the same, that’s exactly what we do inside Become You 2.0.

Enrollment for the Spring cohort closes soon!

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P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast!

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