Who You Need to Be to Reach What You Want: Identity-Based Goals
The Missing Piece in Traditional Goal Setting
You've set the goal. Maybe it's growing your CPA firm to $2M, making partner, or finally achieving work-life balance. You've created the plan, identified the strategies, and committed to the actions. But six months later, you're still stuck in the same place, wondering why nothing has changed.
Here's what traditional goal setting misses: your goals aren't just achieved through different actions, they require you to become a different person. This is where identity-based goal setting for CPAs begins by asking who you must become, not just what you must do.
Why Your Current "Who" Created Your Current Results
Your identity, who you believe you are, drives everything. It shapes the thoughts you habitually think, which create the feelings you regularly experience, which determine the actions you consistently take. Those actions produce your results.
If you're someone who sees yourself as "the person who fixes everyone's mistakes," you'll keep attracting chaos. If you identify as "always available," you'll keep answering emails at 10pm. Your current identity created your current results. To get different results, you need a different identity.
This is what you must realize: you're not trying to DO different things while staying the same person. You're becoming someone new, and that person naturally does things differently.
The Filter You're Using to See Yourself
We all have a filter through which we interpret everything, including ourselves. Some filters are destructive: "I'm not good enough," "Things always go wrong for me," "I have to do everything myself." Some filters are limited but functional: "I'm competent at what I do," "I can handle what's in front of me," "I follow the rules and meet expectations."
And some filters are expansive: "I'm capable of continuous growth," "I create opportunities," "I lead and inspire others."
Your current filter created your current reality. The CPA who sees themselves as "the person who never says no" will stay overwhelmed. The professional who identifies as "just a tax preparer" will struggle to position themselves as a strategic advisor. How you show up and are perceived by others (your executive presence) stems directly from this internal filter. [Learn more about developing executive presence here].
Your goals are calling you to adopt a different filter, a new way of seeing yourself. The question isn't whether you can achieve the goal with your current identity. The question is: who do you need to become?
The Loop That Keeps You Stuck
Your identity reinforces itself daily through a predictable cycle: You think thoughts about who you are. Those thoughts create feelings. Those feelings drive actions. Those actions prove your thoughts "right."
Here's how it plays out: You identify as "the go-to person, always available." This generates the thought, "They need me to respond immediately." That thought creates anxiety and a sense of being indispensable but resentful. Those feelings drive you to answer emails at 10pm and take calls during dinner. Those actions reinforce your identity as the always-available person.
The cycle repeats. Your identity stays locked in place.
But here's the powerful part: you can interrupt this loop. You can choose different thoughts about who you are, which changes everything downstream. It’s more than positive thinking. It's identity reconstruction.
What's Keeping You Stuck in the Old Version
Three patterns lock people into their current identity:
Avoiding discomfort. The new version of you feels uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. So you retreat to the comfortable old identity. You want to be a delegator, but it feels terrifying to not control everything, so you stay the micromanager. The discomfort isn't a problem, it's proof you're changing.
The negative running commentary. Your inner critic asks, "Who do you think you are?" when you try to step into a new identity. This self-judgment keeps you small and familiar. You want to be seen as a strategic advisor, but you judge yourself as "just a tax preparer."
Focusing on the gap. You constantly measure the distance between who you are now and who you want to be. This reinforces "I'm not there yet" instead of "I'm becoming." You want to be a confident leader but only collect evidence of your current insecurity.
Notice these patterns. Then choose differently.
The Identity-Aligned Goal Setting Process
Start with the goal. What do you actually want to achieve? Be specific.
Define who you need to become. Not what you need to do, but who you need to be. What filter does this version of you use? Instead of "I'm stretched too thin," they think "I'm someone who protects my time." Instead of "I'm just a technician," they believe "I'm a trusted advisor." Instead of "I have to prove myself," they know "I'm confident in my value."
Identify your new thought-feeling-action loop. What thoughts does this version of you think regularly? "I trust my team to handle this" (not "Only I can do it right"). What feelings do these thoughts create? Calm, confident, spacious (not anxious, rushed, burdened). What actions naturally emerge? Delegate, set boundaries, focus on strategy (not micromanage, overwork, stay in the weeds).
Design daily identity-reinforcing practices. Start each day reminding yourself who you're becoming: "Today I'm showing up as someone who leads, not rescues." Throughout the day, catch yourself in old patterns and choose the new thought. Each evening, collect evidence of where you showed up as the new version. Even small moments count.
Making It Real
Let's make this concrete with a common scenario for CPAs and accounting professionals. If you want to grow your firm to $2M, the old identity filter of "I'm a great technician who works really hard" keeps you as expensive labor. The new filter; "I'm a CEO who builds a business" shifts everything. Your thoughts change from "I need to be in every client engagement" to "My job is strategy and relationships." You move from overwhelmed to focused, from 70-hour weeks to building systems, from stuck to scalable.
If you want work-life balance, you're shifting from "I'm the hero who saves the day" to "I'm someone who maintains sustainable excellence." Your anxious thought "If I don't respond immediately, things will fall apart" becomes "My clients value quality, not 24/7 availability." You move from exhausted to energized, from resented to respected.
If you want to develop your team into leaders, you're shifting from 'I'm the one with all the answers' to 'I'm a developer of talent.' Your frustrated thought 'It's faster if I just do it myself' becomes 'My job is to make them better, not to be better than them.' You move from bottleneck to builder of capable teams. This same identity foundation applies when leading remote or hybrid teams (see my article on leading from a distance).
This next part is important: when you start thinking, feeling, and acting from the new identity, it will feel weird. Your brain will say, "This isn't you," or "You're being fake." This discomfort isn't a sign you're doing it wrong, it's a sign you're doing it right. The new identity feels uncomfortable precisely because it's new. Keep choosing it anyway. That's how it becomes real.
Your Goals Are an Invitation to Evolve
Your goals aren't destinations you reach by doing more or doing better. They're invitations to become someone different. The achievement is almost a side effect of the becoming.
This is why people can have all the right strategies and still not reach their goals. They're trying to get new results while staying the same person. It doesn't work that way. Strengthening your leadership identity is the foundation of effective identity-based goal setting for CPAs, and it turns your goals into natural outcomes of who you become.
Pick one goal you're working toward. Now ask yourself: Who do I need to become to achieve this? What filter does that person use to see themselves? What do they think, feel, and do regularly? What's one thought you can choose today that belongs to that version of you?
Your goal is waiting for you on the other side of that identity shift.
Start with one thought. Then another. Then another.
That's how you become.
If you're ready to explore who you need to become to achieve your goals, schedule a discovery call and let's map out your identity shift together. Click here to schedule.