Time for a (very personal) rebrand?
Sometimes your identity needs a bit of a rebrand.
At the delicate age of 20, your personal brand (identity) might have been kind of flowing and pastel, with gold curly scroll-like bits in the corner and go something like this:
‘Mary is a real people pleaser. She knows how to work hard and smile. If you want someone who is going to keep conflict in the corner, then Mary is your girl. There will be no complaints from this one, she’ll just take all her frustrations home with her and come back the next day with a can-do attitude and you will just love her! After all, she’s adorable, and so reliable!’
And year after year, you might have just stuck with that branding, because — well — it kind of worked. It worked through university, your first love, your first proper job, your first heartbreak, then marriage and family and the next job. Even when you missed out on that promotion or realised you’d been taken for granted by the company you had dedicated your life to, you stuck with the branding, because well, you never really had the time or inclination to change it — there was so much else to be getting on with.
But then one day you think ‘You know what! I’m 47. Why am I still going around wearing that faded, passé (dare I say ‘vintage!) branding from a quarter of a century ago? Jeez, if I was a branding person I’d have sacked myself back at the turn of the century at least!
So, you go along and have a chat with a coach and say: “I’m SO ready for a new brand. Something a bit more fit-for-purpose, something state-of-the-art, maybe even something with some edge! I am no longer a pastel kind of person! I might even want some black jagged bits!”
And then together you’d figure it out.
‘Which bits of this brand are no longer working for you? What would you like instead? Who are you? Where are you going? What do you want? You can keep the curly scroll-like bits in the corner if you like, but are they still YOU?
And maybe you’d come up with something like this instead:
‘Mary is a leader of pirates! She has things to say and she’s ready to say them. This is a woman who knows her voice is as vibrant and valuable as anyone else’s. She will smite the Imposter Syndrome that has silenced her for years and, rise up with her cutlass of character to forge her place on the world stage. She has work to do, so don’t get in her way!’
And then you might get a bit scared and be tempted to pull out the old branding again, because it’s familiar and comfortable, and it won’t cause any trouble.
But your coach might say ‘How do you feel about trying it, maybe just for a day, and see how it feels? You can always go back if it doesn’t feel right..’
And you take a deep breath and say ‘OK, I’ll give it a go’.
And you do. And you realise you kind of like it. And you look at your brand new business card every day and you say: ‘This is me. I might not be all the way there yet, but this is the me I want to be.’
And every day you GROW a little bit more into that branding you know is right, because you really fucking worked hard at figuring it out. And every day you get a little more confident. And then one day you come across the old pastel business card with the gold curly scroll-like bits in the corner and you laugh with relief that you have moved on. And so you throw it in the same drawer as your 1980s big hair and fluorescent tube skirt, blessing the woman you once were, embracing what she has grown into and walk out into the sunshine with your big-girl pirate boots (with jagged bits) on and face the world.
That’s kind of what coaching is like.
Are you ready for a rebrand? Book yourself in for a free Discovery Session and let’s chat about whether it’s time for some new business cards in your pocket…
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Suzi Butcher is a personal strategy coach. She works with women who feel they are stagnating (at work or home), to step up and play big in the world, by developing a road map to help them navigate uncertainty and live in ‘flourishment’ instead! You can read more about how she can help you develop your own personal strategy here…
