The Queen of the Castle

-has superpowers to clean the house to perfection

Alert and upright

Keeps shoulders back, straightens back,

-keeps things clean and organised

-loves cleaning and organising

-feels pleasure to cook

-feels pleasure to clean

-takes good care of my children

-children love when I give them food

-children love to be with me

-children love to play with me

Is being very calm at all times

Offers good examples and discipline

Children always love to be around me

I love decluttering

I love sorting things in the home

Is motivated to clean

-wakes up super-early and finishes her chores

Loves coffee,

Loves reading books

Is funny

Is witty

Super strong,

Super smart,
Uber-Uber

-great driver

-loves to keep the car clean

-loves to clean the car’

Takes good care of the car

Drives carefully

Pays attention to the road

Is being calm

Knows the driving rules

Is laser-focused

Has superpowers to drive confidently

Super smart

SuperTeacher

Has awesome teaching superpowers that make children looove my classes, they are so eager to see
me, they listen to me and learn everything I teach,

-is enthusiastic

Is laser-focused on work

Calm

Competent

Confident

Speaks loudly and clearly

Dresses in an impressive way

Super smart

Is talking formally

Has perfect outfits

Is wearing clean, nice clothes and accessories

Has perfect hairstyle

Friendly

Is super Motivated to work

MeyZing

-super talented at drawing, is motivated to draw, feels super motivated to draw, loves drawing, loves
narrating her drawing videos, speaks great, fluent American English, is extremely good at drawing,
people are amazed at her talent, has 100Million subscribers and makes 150 000 Dollars each month
from Youtube videos, fans are so amaxed by my videos, they watch and rewatch all my videos
because they loved them and it makes them feel so good and happy, has lots of great ideas, has
superpowers in drawing-her drawings get done amazingly well very fast, super smart, is an expert in
drawing and painting,

Loving Queen

-self loves, compassionate to selk, shhhhs the critical voice inside and caresses the Self, tends to
emotional needs, takes good care of the body, loves herself very much, is super confident,

It has four steps: identifying your aspirations, identifying your limitations, creating a character, and identifying a trigger.

Identifying your limitations

What do you get in your own way about? What holds you back from getting what you want? What scares you? Where are you putting the brakes
on because of fear or lack of self-perceived ability?

Congratulations, these are where your alter ego is the best at. Are you shy at networking events? Your alter ego walks up to groups of strangers
and knows they can win them over easily. Have a tough time with procrastination? Your alter ego is laser-focused. Do you give into impulsive and
undisciplined behaviors a little too often? Your alter ego is an iron-willed, no treats, wake up at 4AM discipline machine.
I don’t actually think the alter ego needs to be someone you want to be full-time, nor does it need to be the perfect version of you (think of the
pressure!), it just needs to have the qualities that you need to get what you want, which in many cases can mean over exaggerating certain
capabilities or traits past what would feel normal — by overshooting, the combination of regular you and the alter ego have a tendency to together
express about the right amount of the desired trait.

Identifying your strengths

This is the inverse of the previous: to make your alter ego still feel like you, it has to have some recognizable characteristics — things
you’re already good at, just amplified. Are you funny? Your alter ego is hilariously witty. Are you strong? Your alter ego is superhuman.
What traits, if turned up to 11, would make current you the best version of current you?
 If you’re not sure what you’re good at, or don’t feel like you’re good at anything, you can ask a friend, or better yet, answer the question for
yourself as if you were a friend answering it back to you. Alter ego training!
Here are a few guiding questions that I’ve found helpful, whether talking to yourself or someone else:

 What challenges have you seen me overcome successfully? Easily?

 What do I seem happiest or most at ease doing?

 How have I helped you/others?

 What do people compliment me on? (this phrasing is a little easier to deal with for both parties than asking a friend to compliment you directly)

Even if you just draw out banal surface stuff like well dressed or nice, that’s fine — can you use these things as a tool? As a confidence booster? Do
they say something more general about your taste? Your put-togetherness? Your empathy? Your ability to blend into situations appropriately?
Find the bigger strength in the little compliment, and amplify that.

Creating a character
The most effective characters (and that’s what you’re doing here; creating a character) have detail. Take some time to flesh out your alter ego’s
physical characteristics and personality traits.

How do they sit? Are they cool and relaxed? Or alert and upright? How do they walk? How do they speak? What kind of words do they use? You
can emulate a character or real person that already exists, or combine traits from a few (e.g. when I’m getting through a tough workout, I actively
pretend to be a cross between Christian Bale’s Batman and golden-era Arnold Schwarzenegger).

As you decide on these traits, write them down for easy reference, and be specific. Chris Hardwick recommends making an actual D&D-style
character sheet for current you and super you, and tracking yourself becoming them with experience points. Herman recommends creating a
fictional origin story, like a superhero. McGonigal recommends creating a unique name.
The point of all of this documentation is to have a concrete, well-rounded sense of who this person is, because embodying them is very similar to
acting, and to effectively act as a character, you have to know who they are in a more holistic way than “they’re better than me at getting up early.”
Well, when do they get up? Why? What motivates them to do that? What does it look like?

If it feels too weird to make someone new up, an easy approach is an “alternate universe” you: you with a different, more heroic backstory (the
radiation from air travel has turned you into SuperYou!), time traveler you from a future where you are already your better self (and therefore know
it’ll happen to you), and so-on.

Identifying a trigger
It becomes easier to step into an alter ego over time, but as you get started, a trigger or totem can be helpful — something that helps you embody
the character by being a trait or object that is unique to that alter ego.
The classic superhero option (but not the only option) is a costume change. I have different costumes for work, for hanging out with friends, for going
to the gym. While most of these are functional garments and/or outward signals that I’m dressed to be in the place I’m supposed to be, they also
serve as signals from me to myself about which version of me I am when I’m wearing them.
It doesn’t need to be a whole outfit — you’re not off to fight crime. Often a single item can do the job just effectively. Case in point: I wear my
glasses when I’m writing, and it’s pretty much the only time I wear my glasses. 5 I wear a baseball cap when I’m working out, and it’s pretty much
the only time I wear a baseball cap. I tuck my shirt in at the office, and almost never wear it tucked in in social situations.
Some other ones that can work well are locations (I’ve mentioned my gym alter ego before), rituals (most pro athletes have very specific warm up
routines for this reason), posture, gait, hairstyle, and any object that you can carry or hold easily.

Bonus idea: Build a multiverse

I think a lot of the writing around creating alter egos focuses on superhero and fantasy stories as a lens because without them, the alter ego is too
hard to believe. A single aspirational version of myself that is well-actualized, lacks my fears and limitations, and is completely capable of everything that I
want to be better at? Impossible, unless I somehow also have superpowers.
For one thing, you’re making this person up, so feel free to also give them superpowers — make them super-strong if you want to get stronger
(well I don’t know if I can deadlift 500 pounds, but StrongMe has literal super-strength, so this isn’t scary at all) make them telepathic if feel like your
emotional intelligence is lacking, make them off-the-charts smart if you feel like you’re not smart enough for your role.
But here’s another thing: you can actually create as many different alter egos as you want. This is what I do, actually. I find that creating
a variety of alter egos, each with their own personality traits and triggers, can be easier to get my head around and deploy strategically in situations
where I most need them.
I don’t have one “SuperMe,” I have a variety: ScholarMe, who is a good, focused writer and an expert in everything I write about and never doubts
his credibility or credentials to write a blog post about alter egos;6 CaringMe, who is the kindest, most empathetic version of myself; StrongMe,
who is a brutal, powerful, fearless strongman, and so-on. I step into each one in a different place; one alter ego for the gym, another when I’m in
airports, a third when feeling anxious about meeting new people, a fourth when I’m writing, and so-on.

Another bonus idea: The trashbag alter ego

You can also create an alter ego to attribute all of your worst and least desirable traits to. Negative self talk? Impulsive behavior? Self-doubt?
Those aren’t you, they’re Trashbag You, an alter ego that you intentionally never embody, a collection of your least desirable traits all in one place.
When negative self-talk is getting the better of me, I ascribe that voice the name and personality of that alter ego, and use it when trying to
distance myself from the self-doubt — it’s not Coleman telling me that I can’t do something, it’s Trashbag Coleman. Is Trashbag Coleman right?
Probably not, he’s a trashbag. Tell him to shut up.
I’m not advocating shirking personal responsibility for your actions —it’s all still you in the end — but instead suggesting a strategy to help you get
some distance to see if those actions are aligned with your true desires, and to help you not beat yourself up over the inevitable personal failings
we all make — is this something SuperMe did/would do? Or something TrashMe did/would do?

Using the alter ego

Now that you’ve got an alter ego (or a few) you’ve got to use ’em. This part is fun. If you’re doing it right, it should feel like play, like improv. Who
cares what you would do in this moment, what would SuperYou do? How would they act?
It’ll take some time to build up to embodying an alter ego for long stretches, and you’ll probably never want step into them all the time. Pick small,
high-stress or high-impact moments and extend from there. When you’re feeling like you’re going to give in, go into your alter ego. Would they give
in?

“Would my alter ego do that?”

Even when you’re not actively embodying your alter ego, you can use them to spot-check your behaviors as a person that you want to be all the
time, even if you’re not pretending to be them at that moment.
“SuperMe wouldn’t do that” can be a powerful mantra. Would they stick to their nutritional goals? Hit snooze? Take the easy way out of a situation
instead of doing the hard-but-right thing?

More importantly: would they treat you harshly if you failed? Or would they be forgiving and compassionate?7 Would they berate you over a
failure? Say unkind things to you that made you feel ineffective or worthless? Or would they treat you with love and kindness? What if you tried to
give them a serving of negative self-talk—would they stand for that kind of nonsense?
You get the idea.

Killing the Alter Ego

Eventually, the conscious decision to step into an alter ego to get into the right mental state won’t be necessary, because it’ll just happen. It won’t
be SuperYou doing those things, it’ll just be plain ‘ol you.
As I was thinking about and researching this article, I ended up reading a Times profile of RuPaul8 — drag is maybe the most obvious non-fictional
‘alter ego creation’ activity that exists — and this quote about his evolving relationship with drag struck me:
[RuPaul] Charles frequently described his relationship to drag as “the Superman to my Clark Kent.” The first time he stepped into his drag
persona, Charles felt fully alive, electric with a power to command attention and desire. One day his therapist told him he could be Superman
regardless of his attire. “She said, ‘The power you feel in drag is available to you 24/7,’ ” he told me. That realization, he said, is what he is trying to
relay in each season of the show, to both the queens and the viewers. Charles is rarely in drag these days — only for special occasions, and
during the judging and elimination rounds on the show — a shift that he made about a decade ago.

Cary Grant has a similar (maybe apocryphal)9 quote:

“I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point along the way.”

I think it’s valuable to try and incorporate your alter ego’s traits back into what you consider “you”, but this may not happen quickly, or
ever. Speed is not important. Bo Jackson used his alter ego for his entire football career, and I think you and I are allowed to pretend to be Batman
in the weight room for as long as is necessary, even if that means forever.
Eventually, though, you’ll probably outgrow the need for an alter ego to embody the traits you want to have, because you’ll have enough practice
that it’ll just become you. If you’re Beyoncé, regular you can publicly “kill” your alter ego, but for us mere mortals, there’s no explicit next step
necessary. Just fake it until you make it.