I've had the same conversation with about 40 different men this year. Every single one of them made the same mistake in week one. Not a training mistake. Not a nutrition mistake. Something deeper that nobody in this industry talks about.
You don't need a new programme. You need a new operating system. Earn it first. Identity later. Sounds logical. That's how I approached it for years. That's how almost every guy I've ever coached approached it.
It's completely backwards.
The right order is the opposite.
Decide who you are. Act from that identity immediately. Watch the physique follow.
Identity first. Results second.
I know that sounds like something you'd read on a motivational poster next to a sunset. Stick with me. Because once you understand why this works, you'll never go back to the old way.
I've been training for almost 16 years. Along the way I've coached hundreds of men through transformations. And there's one pattern I see over and over with every guy who comes back to me after falling off.
The man who waits until he's lean enough to feel confident will sabotage himself every step of the way. He'll get to about week four. Start seeing some changes. Then something happens. Goes out with his mates, has a few drinks, misses a session, eats like shit for a weekend. Before you know it he's back to square one.
The man who waits until he's successful to carry himself like a leader never gets there. Because the way he carries himself is the thing that creates the success. Not the other way round.
I used to see this all the time when I was training in London. Two guys would start the same programme on the same day. Same exercises, same sets, same nutrition plan. Three months later one of them is completely unrecognisable. The other one looks basically the same.
Same programme. Same macros. Very different results.
I couldn't figure out why until I started paying attention to the thing nobody talks about.
I. You can't fake it. but you can decide it
I can already hear some of you. "You can't fake it till you make it."
I'm not asking you to pretend. Pretending gets exhausting. Pretending doesn't work. You can't maintain a mask forever because your body knows when you're lying to yourself.
What I'm talking about is deciding.
There's a massive difference between pretending to be someone and deciding who you are right now. Before the evidence shows up.
Every man you respect. Every man building something meaningful. He didn't wait for permission. He didn't wait for the world to validate him. He decided first. Then went and proved it.
So here's what I want you to do right now...
Think about the version of you that has already built the physique. Not the version that's trying. Not the version that's hoping. The version that's already there.
What does he eat? How does he train? How does he carry himself? How does he handle the temptation when the boys are asking him out for beers? How does he speak to himself when things get hard? What does his morning look like?
You already know. You can see him clearly. You know exactly who that man is.
So why aren't you being him now?
Because you've been told your whole life that you have to earn it first. Suffer first. Identity comes later. Grind now, become the man after.
It sounds so reasonable that nobody even questions it.
It's a trap.
The version of you with the physique isn't some future thing you're slowly building towards. He already exists. You're not creating him. You're selecting him. Every time you train, eat right, keep your word, you're not earning the right to become him. You're confirming that you already are him.
II. The software that's running you
Most men are walking around with an identity that was built for them, not by them.
Your parents told you who you were. School told you what you could achieve. Society told you what was realistic. Social media told you what you should want.
None of it was chosen by you. All of it was absorbed. And now you're trying to transform your body whilst running software that was installed by someone else.
I think about this a lot in my own life. I dropped out of uni. Had no idea what I was doing for years. Tried so much different stuff. And the whole time there was this background programme running: "You're not the kind of guy who finishes things. People like you don't build something from nothing."
That wasn't my programme. That was installed. By teachers who didn't believe in me. By a system that only rewards one type of intelligence. By a society that tells you to play it safe and get a proper job.
The day I started writing my own programme was the day everything changed.
III. The thermostat
This is the bit that makes everything click.
Your conscious mind might want to be lean, disciplined, strong. But your subconscious is still running the old programme. So what happens is this loop:
The old identity whispers "you're not that guy." You unconsciously act accordingly. The results confirm the old belief. The identity gets reinforced.
Round and round it goes.
It's like a thermostat. Your heating is set to a certain temperature. If the room gets too hot, it turns off. Too cold, it turns on. Always pulls back to the set point.
Your identity works the exact same way.
If you start doing better than your identity allows, something pulls you back. You self-sabotage. Not because you're weak. Not because you're lazy. Because your nervous system is doing its job. Keeping you at your set point.
The only way to break this is to change the set point first. Change the identity. Then the thermostat regulates towards a new standard.
There's another way to think about this. What you see in the mirror right now is a delayed reflection. It's showing you last month's decisions. Last year's identity. If you changed today the mirror hasn't caught up yet. Most guys quit because they judge their progress by yesterday's reflection. That's like getting angry at a photo taken six weeks ago. It's not showing you who you are now. It's showing you who you were.
IV. The Four Steps
This is dead simple. Not easy. But very simple.
One. Define who you are becoming. Write it down in the present tense.
Not "I want to be disciplined." That's a wish.
I am the man who trains with intensity. I eat clean. I keep my word.
Present tense. As if it's already true.
Two. Act from the identity immediately.
Don't wait until you feel like it. That feeling comes after the action, not before. The man you're becoming doesn't sit around waiting for motivation. He just does the thing.
So you do the thing.
Three. Eliminate identity conflicts.
Audit your environment. Your habits. Your relationships. Anything that reinforces the old version of you has to go.
If your mates are the kind who take the piss out of you for ordering a steak instead of a kebab or saying no to the beers, that's an identity conflict. I'm not saying ditch your mates. I'm saying be aware of what's pulling you back.
Four. Stack evidence.
This is the one that makes it stick.
Every time you follow through on something, no matter how small, you're building evidence for the new identity. Went to the gym when you didn't feel like it. Evidence. Ate right when you could have ordered a pizza. Evidence. Kept a promise you made to yourself. More evidence.
Your subconscious doesn't respond to affirmations. It responds to proof. Give it enough proof and it'll update the programme. That's when the shift becomes permanent.
V. The gatekeeper
There's one more thing you need to understand because this is the bit that stops people.
Your nervous system is the gatekeeper of change. It doesn't care about your goals. Doesn't care about your vision board. It cares about one thing: safety.
And for your nervous system, safety means familiar.
So when you start acting from this new identity, your body is going to resist. You're going to feel uncomfortable. Feel like something's off. Like you're doing it wrong.
That is not a sign to stop. That is a sign that you're actually changing.
I'll say it again because it's that important...
The discomfort you feel when you push into new territory is not a sign to stop. It's a sign that you're changing.
Every cold shower. Every early morning. Every heavy set where you go to genuine failure. You're not just building muscle. You're not just burning fat. You are retraining your nervous system to accept the new identity as safe.
Once the nervous system accepts it, game over. The old you is gone. The new identity becomes your baseline. The thermostat has been reset.
VI. The moment it clicks
There will come a point, usually around week six, maybe week eight of genuine consistent effort, where you look in the mirror and something feels different.
Not just the reflection. The man behind it.
The way you look at yourself changes. The internal dialogue changes. You stop criticising and start acknowledging. You stop seeing what's missing and start seeing what you've built.
You'll know the shift has really happened because it stops feeling exciting. It starts feeling normal. Almost boring. Like remembering something that already happened rather than hoping for something that might. That's the signal. When the new identity feels like a memory instead of a goal, the thermostat has actually moved.
That's the moment the new identity has taken root.
The physique follows because it has no choice. I've seen this happen with so many men now. Always around the six to eight week mark, something clicks. From that point on the results accelerate. Because the man inside has changed. The body is just catching up.
Your mission
Don't just read this and scroll to the next thing. That's what the old version of you would do.
One. Decide who you are today. Not who you want to be someday. Who you are.
Two. Write it down in present tense. Put it somewhere you'll see every morning.
Three. Mentally inhabit that state before you arrive. See him. Feel him. Be him before the mirror reflects it back.
Four. Act from it immediately. Not tomorrow. Not Monday. The next decision you make after reading this, make it as that man.
Five. Stack evidence with every decision. Every single vote counts. Let them compound.
Build the man first. The physique is inevitable.
The single biggest difference between the men who transform and the men who stay stuck is not their programme. Not their genetics. Not how much time they have.
It's whether they decided who they were before the results showed up.
That's it.
— Achilles
