159. Floors & Ceilings: Identity Shifts to Reach Your 2026 Goals
What do you need to do to achieve your goals in 2026? All of us have set points, what we are comfortable having and doing, and where we hold ourselves back. In this episode, I'm diving into how these invisible barriers show up as "floors and ceilings" in your interior design business. These floors are what you're stuck to or cannot move beyond, while ceilings represent the bigger goals and what you need to break through to reach them.
The identity shifts required to achieve your 2026 goals are an essential part of sustainable business growth. I'm exploring how your past, present, and future self concept directly impacts what you are able to create in your company. This is a process we continually go through as business owners, whether you realize it or not, and bringing awareness to it means we can leverage it and use it on purpose.
You'll discover why most people skip this deeper identity work when setting goals and how that keeps them stuck at their current set points. While this episode is rooted in mindset, you'll walk away with tangible takeaways you can start using immediately as you dream up what you want to create and achieve in 2026. You'll learn how to spot your own floors, envision your ceilings, and most importantly, understand what beliefs need to shift to move from one to the other.
If you've been thinking about working with me one-on-one, be sure to get on the private coaching waitlist! Click here to learn more about Design to Thrive and secure your spot to be the first to know when availability opens up.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why identity work needs to be an integral part of your goal-setting process.
How "floors and ceilings" represent your current set points versus where you want to grow.
The specific questions to ask yourself to identify beliefs keeping you stuck.
What cognitive dissonance between your current state and goals really means.
How breaking through ceilings creates new floors as you evolve.
Why there's always going to be a gap between where you are and where you want to be.
Practical prompts to explore your own floors and ceilings before 2026.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to Episode 159. In this one, I'm sharing the identity shifts that are absolutely necessary as you set and achieve your 2026 goals.
All of us have set points. This is what we're talking about today. And that is what we are comfortable having and doing, and where we hold ourselves back, or the reach points we have trouble moving beyond. Today, we're going to dive into how your past, present, and future self-concept or identity directly impacts business growth.
I'll be talking about this through a concept I call floors and ceilings. Floors being what you're stuck to or can't move beyond, or those things you keep bumping up against. And the ceilings are those bigger goals, where you're going, where you're headed, and what you need to break through. And it all starts with your identity. It's a process we continually go through as business owners, whether you realize it or not. And so we want to bring awareness to it so we can leverage it and use it on purpose.
While this episode is very much rooted in mindset, it's also going to be very practical with tangible takeaways that you can start using immediately as you start to dream up what you want to create and achieve in 2026.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are doing well. Here, it has been a busy week and a fun week, but busy, you know? I went and saw the poet Kate Baer with friends. If you haven't heard of her, definitely go look her up. I recently just heard of her, and apparently, she's been popular for a long time, so I'm late to the game, but she talks a lot about being a woman, motherhood, friendship, parenting, all of that through her poetry. And I had the opportunity to go see her with friends this week, and not only does she write beautifully, she is so funny in person. So I loved that.
And then I hosted a Girl Scout meeting at our house with a guest speaker. We found a confidence coach for girls, so we brought her in to do some really cool activities. And then last night, I met up with my design book club, which is always just a blast. I always laugh so hard when I'm there. So all great things, but also a bit of a whirlwind if you add in all the other life and business stuff happening, which I know you know what I'm talking about.
One of the things that's been making this past few weeks actually more condensed feeling is I am finalizing all of the marketing for Create Your 2026 Roadmap. This is my annual goal-setting workshop. It is the sixth year I'm bringing this back, and it's a two-part interactive series. So you plan your year with me live on the call. I'm guiding you through all of it step by step. And then what happens is you leave with your own personalized roadmap, and you know exactly what you're going to be focusing on in the business and just as importantly, what you're not going to be doing for each quarter.
And then we come back together one week later, after you've let the dust settle a little bit, make sure you've got your fine-tuning done, you've come up with questions, you're thinking about, well, what if this, what if that, and I coach you. You can ask me your questions, you can get help with your mindset to support the execution. We can talk about your action plan. It's all on the table in that call.
And right now, you can still join with early bird pricing, so it's only $47. There's less than a week left to get that early bird pricing. So go do that right now. You can pause the episode and make sure this happens. I also have been emailing you. At this point, you've probably gotten some emails about this, but the web address is desiid.com/2026roadmap. And “2026Roadmap” is all one word.
I would love to see some of our podcast community show up live on these calls. There will be recordings if you can't attend on the specific dates and time, but I'd really love to see you there.
At this point, over 300 designers have gone through this process, and I know that it really works. It's the process I use myself and what I teach my clients. So great opportunity for us to connect, for me to support you, and for you to get all that planning done in a structured way where you don't have to worry about doing it on your own.
Now, speaking of quarterly plans, which is one of the things we'll do in Roadmap, I was doing my weekly evaluation, and I promise this is the last little tangent here before we dive in. But what I realized, and maybe you're realizing this too, is I don't know, I always forget just how condensed the end of the year becomes. I have podcasts to do in advance. I have emails to write in advance. And this year too, it's even more so, my assistant's going on maternity leave.
So, anyways, what I decided to do through this evaluation this week is I'm actually making a note on my Q4 plan for 2026 to be like, "Hey, Desi, remember this." So if this is you too, know that you can make life easier for your future self and make a little note, whatever it is that kind of always comes up for you at the end of the year. So that way, when you do your year-long planning process, you can take that into account and really leverage the resources you have available and also know that you're not overextending them.
All right, so let's dive into what we're going to talk about today. And it is something that when it comes to achieving goals, it's something you really need to know. It needs to be an integral part of your goal-setting process. And more often than not, I see that this is overlooked, unless maybe it's because you've been my client or you've been listening to the podcast for a very long time and actively applying what I share.
And what I'm talking about is the identity evolution that is required to occur right alongside the actions you take to achieve your goals. The way I want to frame this for you today is in relation to floors and ceilings. You can actually think about if we had a room, and there is a floor and there is a ceiling, and you are standing in it. And the ceiling is high, okay? It's not a short little ceiling, it's a high ceiling. There's a gap between the top of you and the top of the room.
I'll get into what I mean by floors and ceilings in just a bit, but let's first talk about what I mean by identity if you haven't heard me talk about that before. And even if you have, this is a really good refresher and just a reframe around today's topic.
Identity, when I talk about it, really is just a set of beliefs. Essentially, sentences that you choose on purposely or subconsciously and unintentionally that you believe about yourself. Sometimes we pick up these beliefs because of things that other people tell us about ourselves, about who we are, or what kind of person we are. And other times we take our own behaviors, our own actions, and then assign meaning or judgment or value to those actions and use that to determine what is the quote-unquote “truth” about us. This is just the way I am. I'm always this. I've always been that.
The beliefs that we have about ourselves or the identity that we hold is going to influence the way that we show up in the world and the things we do or don't do. And of course, that impacts the type of results we're able to create as a human being out in the world and in our life, and as the business owner in the company that you run.
That's why this is so essential that when you're setting your goals, you want to make sure that the identity or the beliefs that you hold about yourself are in alignment with and supporting where you're going, not where you've been or where you currently are at even because in the process of goal achievement, you will become the next version of you. And you will engage in the process of becoming to grow into the tangible goal that you set. That's why I often say goals grow you because they do. They require you to uplevel internally, and then that impacts the external expression.
Most people skip this part, and while action is definitely required in terms of making things happen, you want to make sure that the beliefs that are fueling your actions are a set of beliefs that align with the capabilities, the behaviors, the habits, the possibilities of the type of person who has achieved the goal that you want to create. And that is really at the root of why identity work is so important.
Identity work also encompasses not just the mindset or belief patterns, but the emotional resilience work that I talk about here on the podcast and also, you know, do actively with my one-on-one clients because the evolution of the next version of you that is confident and creates the type of business you want to create, it can be very exciting and amazing, and beliefs that fuel that type of action of I can do this, this is happening, all great.
And it can also be very uncomfortable to do things differently or put yourself out in ways that you have never done before, or possibly risk rejection or failure in some way, however you define that.
So it's not just, I believe in me and I believe I can hit that goal. It's I believe I can do all the things that are going to be required of me along the way. I believe I can hold myself in this discomfort of doing things that feel foreign. I believe I have the resilience to miss the mark on the first time and try again.
If you don't do the identity work alongside the practical planning pieces of this is what I'm doing, this is how I'm doing it, this is the help I need, all those things. If you don't do the identity work, your brain is going to pop in and go, "Hey, that's all really different from how we've been doing things. That feels scary," because the brain wants to keep you safe. Even though there is this part of humans that we are designed to evolve and grow, there's also this primitive part of us who is encouraged to just stay exactly put and not do anything different.
With this foundation now laid about identity and why it's so important, I want to move into the idea of floors and ceilings, of how the floors that exist in your business right now are those set points that your brain wants to keep you stuck at. And the ceilings are your goals. The ceilings are what you need to break through to get to your 2026 vision.
Your floor and your current state of the business was built from a set of beliefs that you have about yourself, that you had about yourself in the past, that you have about yourself now, and is firmly rooted in your current identity. Of course, there's going to be pieces of your identity that are serving you that you want to keep going with, that are going to carry you very far, that you might not want to release. But that definitely won't be the case of all these beliefs. You could think of your floors as your norm or your baseline or just, like, this is the way things are in my life or business right now. That's the set point.
A ceiling really speaks to who you are becoming, that evolved version of you who's operating in the business, that next level vision that has achieved something greater than what you have right now.
And as you work towards your goal, as you even set a goal, right? Immediately, when you set a goal, you create a gap from where you are right now to where you want to be. And there is going to be some cognitive dissonance between what you currently think you can achieve and what you want to achieve, especially if you are aiming for bigger, grander goals.
I'll also say, though, your ceiling can show up even in years of stabilization. This is kind of wild, but it's important to note. Sometimes we get in the habit of seeing ourselves or seeing the business as bigger and better, and that being the only definition of growth or movement in the business. But sometimes our growth is stabilizing, not pushing as hard this year, settling into the growth that you've already created. And so that can be a ceiling as well.
Here's how these two things relate. The ceiling is your growth edge. I use the phrase earlier, goals that grow you. And what I mean by that is setting goals is about who you're going to become in the process of achieving that goal, whether that is the qualities you'll develop, the skills you'll develop, the relationships you'll create.
There is an evolution, and that all requires willingness to do things that feel hard, things that feel challenging, and that you're going to have to break through or solve for. The ceiling that you're moving beyond, the set point you're breaking through, it's going to become eventually what you look back on and think, "Oh, all right, I did that. Now what else can I do?"
Moving beyond the ceiling requires you to shed the identity that exists in your current state, the floor, and move into that willingness to do the hard things, to be able to process the emotions that come up from moving out of safety and security in a current set point. That is really how you break through the ceiling.
And as you do that process over and over again throughout the years, what you're doing is when you move beyond the ceiling, you create a new floor. You have a new baseline that you're operating with. I'm sure you can see this if you look back on your business, who you were when you started, and who you are now, and how these different set points existed along the timelines.
Both the business and you create new internal set points, and that is what is operating the business, and then will contribute to future growth. So all the growth that you've had thus far is coming with you and is an asset in the business to move towards that next ceiling.
As you begin to dream up what's next for you and your interior design business in the coming year, you really do need to start though with not just what that ceiling is that you're working toward, but what is the current floor. We always have to start with awareness. And then from that place of awareness of knowing ourselves, knowing what the floor is, we do the coaching necessary to poke holes in the story that's going to keep you stuck, and then move into actively adopting beliefs that will fuel the actions that you are going to have to take as the business owner to achieve whatever goal that you've set.
Let's talk about looking for your floors so you can have that awareness. I want you to just ask yourself, what do I believe is possible for me? What do I believe a person like me is capable of? When I think about what I want to achieve next year, what do I think of that? What is my perception of myself and my ability to be the creator of that change and of those new results?
Often, when we're talking about identity, all-or-nothing thinking or black-and-white thinking starts to show up as a clear indicator of a strongly rooted belief. So that's another thing you can look for. “I'm someone who always…” “I never do…” And just be aware of that. What is the story that you are currently telling?
And also, of course, as we think about looking to the ceiling, remember that no identity is fixed. We can look back at your business and what you believed was possible or what you were capable of in the past, and see that there are certainly beliefs you have dropped along the way and adopted new ones. And let that be evidence for you that this shift is possible.
Then we can look up to the ceiling and ask ourselves, what is different about the version of me that has achieved that goal? What am I doing differently? How am I showing up differently? You can do this as a reflection on you specifically and your actions and behaviors, how you're feeling, all of those things. And sometimes it can also be helpful to look at this from an outside perspective of, let's pretend that someone else has this goal, and you believe they're capable of doing it. So what do they believe about themselves? How do they take action? What kind of help do they have in their business? How do they support themselves as the business owner? That can be a great way to tap into some of those beliefs if you feel like you are on shaky ground with what you're headed towards.
The other thing I suggest you do at this point is to look at what about that version of myself who achieves the goal makes me uncomfortable and why? We need to look at that. This discomfort could definitely come from, "Oh, well, they have a different skill set than me, and I'm going to have to get some experience in this way," or it might be that I've never been that visible in the business and I am going to need to put my face out there more.
Or it might be, I need to make this investment, and that investment is bigger than any investment I've ever made for the business, and that feels kind of scary. We also want to be mindful, though, if the version of you or the version of you believe you have to become to achieve this goal actually goes against what you want for yourself or how you want to pursue this goal.
Often, we think we have to do things a certain way or at a certain pace when really that isn't true. And because we don't want to be that person, we create this friction where we're actively pushing against ourselves or procrastinating the growth when really what needs to happen is we don't need to resist being or doing in a way that we don't want to be or do. What we need to do is create a version of you that does the things in a way that works for you, your strengths, your team, the hours you want to work, the way that you want to operate as the leader of the business.
I mentioned this earlier, but I want to bring it back into focus, and that is in all stages of business, there is always going to be a gap between the floor and the ceiling. You have space when you think about your 2026 goals, and as you close the gap and you break your own ceiling, you will create a new floor. And because I know you, you're a high achiever, just like me, you're going to then go and envision a new ceiling. That is not a problem.
I've been talking to so many clients about this, and some of the people I've done the strategy sessions with, and it's not a problem. There is always going to be a gap between where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow, next week, you know, a few months from now, and next year, years from now. That's just inevitable. That is part of being an entrepreneur, is living in the in-between of what is right now and what is coming to fruition.
As I was thinking about this concept, I was thinking specifically about an escalator. And an escalator, of course, moves between two floors. It's a way that you get from one floor to the next or stairs, even, right? And as you're doing this work of becoming the version of you who creates the results that you want to create, you're moving up on the escalator. You are eventually getting there. And you get to that top floor. And what's amazing is you look down and you see how far you've come.
I'm based out of the Minneapolis area. So here we have a, I don't know if you'd call it a famous mall. I don't know how I'd describe that, but it's the Mall of America. It's a very large mall. I think it has four floors. Honestly, I try and avoid it at all costs because it is a little overwhelming to go into.
But anyway, there are these giant floors and different wings of the mall, and escalators connect the different floors. And if you look from the bottom floor all the way to the top, you think, "Wow, that's a long way to go. That's going to take me a really long time." But then, as you go up, you get more perspective. You start to see the ceiling or the floor of these different stages and see your progress until you reach the top.
There's no issues when we think about this in terms of a building, of the floors and ceilings being there. So I really encourage you to consider that gap that I'm talking about here, of the floor and the ceiling, really is not a problem if you just use it as information and understand that it's a natural part of your evolution as a business owner and the evolution of the business too.
This is where I want to encourage you to always be looking for the progress. Essentially, don't be on the escalator complaining about the number of floors left or wishing you were on a different part of the escalator. I know this is easier said than done at times, but just keep reminding yourself, this is where I am, this is where I'm going, and eventually I will get there. You will break your ceiling in the way that you're meant to if you keep at it.
I also want to remind you again of you've gone through these cycles. You've broken through ceilings in your business. You've created new floors. You've set new ceilings. It really is just a continual process that you sign up for when you build a business. And the more that we can be at peace with that and proactively show up to move past those internal set points, the smoother the ride will be, and honestly, it tends to be quicker too when we're not in resistance.
The only problem is if you're bumping up against a ceiling and you don't realize it's a ceiling because you're going against that same problem, or you keep being like, "Why does this keep happening? Why do I keep facing this over and over again?" And this is why coaching is so effective. It's that outside perspective I give my clients because I can see what they can't see because they are too in it.
I, of course, believe deeply in the power of coaching, whether that is working with me, someone else, or doing your own reflection practices. You know, I'm always talking about the weekly evaluation. I brought it up earlier, but we really do need to consistently be looking at what are those patterns, what are those themes? What keeps occurring that I haven't solved for, because we don't want to ignore those. We want to address them and start to test solutions so that we can move beyond them.
If you're joining me in Create Your 2026 Roadmap, we'll be doing a thorough but curious evaluation of this past year so that I can help you spot where are you bumping up against those same issues, making things harder than they need to be, or even just being sneaky with ourselves. Sometimes we kind of go behind our own back to keep ourselves safe, keep ourselves on that floor, and not moving forward towards the ceiling.
So know that if you're joining me and I've already signed up, we'll be doing this. And if you haven't, get on it. But we will evaluate last year so that you identify the floors and the ceilings, whether you got stuck or you moved past it and now can leverage the lessons learned from how you did that to create even more momentum.
As we wrap up, I want to give you some prompts to explore this concept and see how it's showing up for you specifically. In doing this, you're going to consider where are you today and where do you want to be. Where you are today is that floor. Where you want to be at the end of 2026 is a ceiling.
And probably if we were to take this even farther, there's lots of ceilings that are going to occur even between that year-long process of achieving your overarching goal. But what type of person do you believe could achieve the goal that you have in mind for 2027? I want you to think about this in your head. You can write it down, but describe them. What are their habits, their behaviors, their levels of willingness, how they show up? All those things, picture them clearly.
And then you're going to reflect on how what you shared as a description compares to the way you currently think about yourself, your own capabilities, and what's possible for you. And in that comparison, I want you to just notice what comes up, what do you see, what do you feel. And then I want you to ask yourself, where might I want to stay rooted to this current floor, and why?
All behaviors have good reasons. They are maybe not the behaviors you want to take or the decisions you want to make, but your brain probably was trying to protect you in some way. It usually comes down to that. So there's some payoff to staying stuck, to staying put, and we want to know what that is, so we can explore that and move past it.
And that leads me to the last question of: What stories do you need to release in order to break through your next ceiling? That's a really good one, too. So see what emerges, and then you can bring all of that to Create Your 2026 Roadmap, where I will help you navigate whatever it is you're seeing or encountering in terms of challenges and coach you through it all.
So, not only will you be strategically approaching your goals with a very clear process, mapping out your entire year, quarter by quarter, with my support, you're also going to have the opportunity to get that personalized feedback and coaching from me so that you have the mindset and emotional tools to move past those sticking points that exist in all of us.
Make sure you sign up before the end of the day, December 16th, because that's how you'll get the early bird pricing of $47. After the 16th, it is going to go up to $87. So it's a really good deal if you're planning on joining me. You might as well save the money, right?
It's desiid.com/2026roadmap to sign up. You'll get all the details there, full sales page, and then of course, can check out, and the code is sort of like already embedded into the checkout. So you don't have to do anything special to get that early bird pricing as long as you sign up before the 16th. Of course, if you're listening to this after the 16th, you can definitely join us. It'll just be at the regular pricing, which is why I'm encouraging you to just get on it now if you're listening.
All right. So the next episode is actually going to be released December 24th. I celebrate Christmas, so that's Christmas Eve for me. And I know it's going to be a time for a lot of us, whatever you celebrate, that it's a little more quiet in business, and maybe you're taking some time off. So I have something short and special planned for you. It's going to be the perfect way to wrap up this year, close this chapter, and move on to the next.
Make sure you're following the show so that you don't miss that one. And until then, I am wishing you a beautiful holiday season and hope to see many of you at Create Your 2026 Roadmap.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
All of us have set points. This is what we're talking about today. And that is what we are comfortable having and doing, and where we hold ourselves back, or the reach points we have trouble moving beyond. Today, we're going to dive into how your past, present, and future self-concept or identity directly impacts business growth.
I'll be talking about this through a concept I call floors and ceilings. Floors being what you're stuck to or can't move beyond, or those things you keep bumping up against. And the ceilings are those bigger goals, where you're going, where you're headed, and what you need to break through. And it all starts with your identity. It's a process we continually go through as business owners, whether you realize it or not. And so we want to bring awareness to it so we can leverage it and use it on purpose.
While this episode is very much rooted in mindset, it's also going to be very practical with tangible takeaways that you can start using immediately as you start to dream up what you want to create and achieve in 2026.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are doing well. Here, it has been a busy week and a fun week, but busy, you know? I went and saw the poet Kate Baer with friends. If you haven't heard of her, definitely go look her up. I recently just heard of her, and apparently, she's been popular for a long time, so I'm late to the game, but she talks a lot about being a woman, motherhood, friendship, parenting, all of that through her poetry. And I had the opportunity to go see her with friends this week, and not only does she write beautifully, she is so funny in person. So I loved that.
And then I hosted a Girl Scout meeting at our house with a guest speaker. We found a confidence coach for girls, so we brought her in to do some really cool activities. And then last night, I met up with my design book club, which is always just a blast. I always laugh so hard when I'm there. So all great things, but also a bit of a whirlwind if you add in all the other life and business stuff happening, which I know you know what I'm talking about.
One of the things that's been making this past few weeks actually more condensed feeling is I am finalizing all of the marketing for Create Your 2026 Roadmap. This is my annual goal-setting workshop. It is the sixth year I'm bringing this back, and it's a two-part interactive series. So you plan your year with me live on the call. I'm guiding you through all of it step by step. And then what happens is you leave with your own personalized roadmap, and you know exactly what you're going to be focusing on in the business and just as importantly, what you're not going to be doing for each quarter.
And then we come back together one week later, after you've let the dust settle a little bit, make sure you've got your fine-tuning done, you've come up with questions, you're thinking about, well, what if this, what if that, and I coach you. You can ask me your questions, you can get help with your mindset to support the execution. We can talk about your action plan. It's all on the table in that call.
And right now, you can still join with early bird pricing, so it's only $47. There's less than a week left to get that early bird pricing. So go do that right now. You can pause the episode and make sure this happens. I also have been emailing you. At this point, you've probably gotten some emails about this, but the web address is desiid.com/2026roadmap. And “2026Roadmap” is all one word.
I would love to see some of our podcast community show up live on these calls. There will be recordings if you can't attend on the specific dates and time, but I'd really love to see you there.
At this point, over 300 designers have gone through this process, and I know that it really works. It's the process I use myself and what I teach my clients. So great opportunity for us to connect, for me to support you, and for you to get all that planning done in a structured way where you don't have to worry about doing it on your own.
Now, speaking of quarterly plans, which is one of the things we'll do in Roadmap, I was doing my weekly evaluation, and I promise this is the last little tangent here before we dive in. But what I realized, and maybe you're realizing this too, is I don't know, I always forget just how condensed the end of the year becomes. I have podcasts to do in advance. I have emails to write in advance. And this year too, it's even more so, my assistant's going on maternity leave.
So, anyways, what I decided to do through this evaluation this week is I'm actually making a note on my Q4 plan for 2026 to be like, "Hey, Desi, remember this." So if this is you too, know that you can make life easier for your future self and make a little note, whatever it is that kind of always comes up for you at the end of the year. So that way, when you do your year-long planning process, you can take that into account and really leverage the resources you have available and also know that you're not overextending them.
All right, so let's dive into what we're going to talk about today. And it is something that when it comes to achieving goals, it's something you really need to know. It needs to be an integral part of your goal-setting process. And more often than not, I see that this is overlooked, unless maybe it's because you've been my client or you've been listening to the podcast for a very long time and actively applying what I share.
And what I'm talking about is the identity evolution that is required to occur right alongside the actions you take to achieve your goals. The way I want to frame this for you today is in relation to floors and ceilings. You can actually think about if we had a room, and there is a floor and there is a ceiling, and you are standing in it. And the ceiling is high, okay? It's not a short little ceiling, it's a high ceiling. There's a gap between the top of you and the top of the room.
I'll get into what I mean by floors and ceilings in just a bit, but let's first talk about what I mean by identity if you haven't heard me talk about that before. And even if you have, this is a really good refresher and just a reframe around today's topic.
Identity, when I talk about it, really is just a set of beliefs. Essentially, sentences that you choose on purposely or subconsciously and unintentionally that you believe about yourself. Sometimes we pick up these beliefs because of things that other people tell us about ourselves, about who we are, or what kind of person we are. And other times we take our own behaviors, our own actions, and then assign meaning or judgment or value to those actions and use that to determine what is the quote-unquote “truth” about us. This is just the way I am. I'm always this. I've always been that.
The beliefs that we have about ourselves or the identity that we hold is going to influence the way that we show up in the world and the things we do or don't do. And of course, that impacts the type of results we're able to create as a human being out in the world and in our life, and as the business owner in the company that you run.
That's why this is so essential that when you're setting your goals, you want to make sure that the identity or the beliefs that you hold about yourself are in alignment with and supporting where you're going, not where you've been or where you currently are at even because in the process of goal achievement, you will become the next version of you. And you will engage in the process of becoming to grow into the tangible goal that you set. That's why I often say goals grow you because they do. They require you to uplevel internally, and then that impacts the external expression.
Most people skip this part, and while action is definitely required in terms of making things happen, you want to make sure that the beliefs that are fueling your actions are a set of beliefs that align with the capabilities, the behaviors, the habits, the possibilities of the type of person who has achieved the goal that you want to create. And that is really at the root of why identity work is so important.
Identity work also encompasses not just the mindset or belief patterns, but the emotional resilience work that I talk about here on the podcast and also, you know, do actively with my one-on-one clients because the evolution of the next version of you that is confident and creates the type of business you want to create, it can be very exciting and amazing, and beliefs that fuel that type of action of I can do this, this is happening, all great.
And it can also be very uncomfortable to do things differently or put yourself out in ways that you have never done before, or possibly risk rejection or failure in some way, however you define that.
So it's not just, I believe in me and I believe I can hit that goal. It's I believe I can do all the things that are going to be required of me along the way. I believe I can hold myself in this discomfort of doing things that feel foreign. I believe I have the resilience to miss the mark on the first time and try again.
If you don't do the identity work alongside the practical planning pieces of this is what I'm doing, this is how I'm doing it, this is the help I need, all those things. If you don't do the identity work, your brain is going to pop in and go, "Hey, that's all really different from how we've been doing things. That feels scary," because the brain wants to keep you safe. Even though there is this part of humans that we are designed to evolve and grow, there's also this primitive part of us who is encouraged to just stay exactly put and not do anything different.
With this foundation now laid about identity and why it's so important, I want to move into the idea of floors and ceilings, of how the floors that exist in your business right now are those set points that your brain wants to keep you stuck at. And the ceilings are your goals. The ceilings are what you need to break through to get to your 2026 vision.
Your floor and your current state of the business was built from a set of beliefs that you have about yourself, that you had about yourself in the past, that you have about yourself now, and is firmly rooted in your current identity. Of course, there's going to be pieces of your identity that are serving you that you want to keep going with, that are going to carry you very far, that you might not want to release. But that definitely won't be the case of all these beliefs. You could think of your floors as your norm or your baseline or just, like, this is the way things are in my life or business right now. That's the set point.
A ceiling really speaks to who you are becoming, that evolved version of you who's operating in the business, that next level vision that has achieved something greater than what you have right now.
And as you work towards your goal, as you even set a goal, right? Immediately, when you set a goal, you create a gap from where you are right now to where you want to be. And there is going to be some cognitive dissonance between what you currently think you can achieve and what you want to achieve, especially if you are aiming for bigger, grander goals.
I'll also say, though, your ceiling can show up even in years of stabilization. This is kind of wild, but it's important to note. Sometimes we get in the habit of seeing ourselves or seeing the business as bigger and better, and that being the only definition of growth or movement in the business. But sometimes our growth is stabilizing, not pushing as hard this year, settling into the growth that you've already created. And so that can be a ceiling as well.
Here's how these two things relate. The ceiling is your growth edge. I use the phrase earlier, goals that grow you. And what I mean by that is setting goals is about who you're going to become in the process of achieving that goal, whether that is the qualities you'll develop, the skills you'll develop, the relationships you'll create.
There is an evolution, and that all requires willingness to do things that feel hard, things that feel challenging, and that you're going to have to break through or solve for. The ceiling that you're moving beyond, the set point you're breaking through, it's going to become eventually what you look back on and think, "Oh, all right, I did that. Now what else can I do?"
Moving beyond the ceiling requires you to shed the identity that exists in your current state, the floor, and move into that willingness to do the hard things, to be able to process the emotions that come up from moving out of safety and security in a current set point. That is really how you break through the ceiling.
And as you do that process over and over again throughout the years, what you're doing is when you move beyond the ceiling, you create a new floor. You have a new baseline that you're operating with. I'm sure you can see this if you look back on your business, who you were when you started, and who you are now, and how these different set points existed along the timelines.
Both the business and you create new internal set points, and that is what is operating the business, and then will contribute to future growth. So all the growth that you've had thus far is coming with you and is an asset in the business to move towards that next ceiling.
As you begin to dream up what's next for you and your interior design business in the coming year, you really do need to start though with not just what that ceiling is that you're working toward, but what is the current floor. We always have to start with awareness. And then from that place of awareness of knowing ourselves, knowing what the floor is, we do the coaching necessary to poke holes in the story that's going to keep you stuck, and then move into actively adopting beliefs that will fuel the actions that you are going to have to take as the business owner to achieve whatever goal that you've set.
Let's talk about looking for your floors so you can have that awareness. I want you to just ask yourself, what do I believe is possible for me? What do I believe a person like me is capable of? When I think about what I want to achieve next year, what do I think of that? What is my perception of myself and my ability to be the creator of that change and of those new results?
Often, when we're talking about identity, all-or-nothing thinking or black-and-white thinking starts to show up as a clear indicator of a strongly rooted belief. So that's another thing you can look for. “I'm someone who always…” “I never do…” And just be aware of that. What is the story that you are currently telling?
And also, of course, as we think about looking to the ceiling, remember that no identity is fixed. We can look back at your business and what you believed was possible or what you were capable of in the past, and see that there are certainly beliefs you have dropped along the way and adopted new ones. And let that be evidence for you that this shift is possible.
Then we can look up to the ceiling and ask ourselves, what is different about the version of me that has achieved that goal? What am I doing differently? How am I showing up differently? You can do this as a reflection on you specifically and your actions and behaviors, how you're feeling, all of those things. And sometimes it can also be helpful to look at this from an outside perspective of, let's pretend that someone else has this goal, and you believe they're capable of doing it. So what do they believe about themselves? How do they take action? What kind of help do they have in their business? How do they support themselves as the business owner? That can be a great way to tap into some of those beliefs if you feel like you are on shaky ground with what you're headed towards.
The other thing I suggest you do at this point is to look at what about that version of myself who achieves the goal makes me uncomfortable and why? We need to look at that. This discomfort could definitely come from, "Oh, well, they have a different skill set than me, and I'm going to have to get some experience in this way," or it might be that I've never been that visible in the business and I am going to need to put my face out there more.
Or it might be, I need to make this investment, and that investment is bigger than any investment I've ever made for the business, and that feels kind of scary. We also want to be mindful, though, if the version of you or the version of you believe you have to become to achieve this goal actually goes against what you want for yourself or how you want to pursue this goal.
Often, we think we have to do things a certain way or at a certain pace when really that isn't true. And because we don't want to be that person, we create this friction where we're actively pushing against ourselves or procrastinating the growth when really what needs to happen is we don't need to resist being or doing in a way that we don't want to be or do. What we need to do is create a version of you that does the things in a way that works for you, your strengths, your team, the hours you want to work, the way that you want to operate as the leader of the business.
I mentioned this earlier, but I want to bring it back into focus, and that is in all stages of business, there is always going to be a gap between the floor and the ceiling. You have space when you think about your 2026 goals, and as you close the gap and you break your own ceiling, you will create a new floor. And because I know you, you're a high achiever, just like me, you're going to then go and envision a new ceiling. That is not a problem.
I've been talking to so many clients about this, and some of the people I've done the strategy sessions with, and it's not a problem. There is always going to be a gap between where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow, next week, you know, a few months from now, and next year, years from now. That's just inevitable. That is part of being an entrepreneur, is living in the in-between of what is right now and what is coming to fruition.
As I was thinking about this concept, I was thinking specifically about an escalator. And an escalator, of course, moves between two floors. It's a way that you get from one floor to the next or stairs, even, right? And as you're doing this work of becoming the version of you who creates the results that you want to create, you're moving up on the escalator. You are eventually getting there. And you get to that top floor. And what's amazing is you look down and you see how far you've come.
I'm based out of the Minneapolis area. So here we have a, I don't know if you'd call it a famous mall. I don't know how I'd describe that, but it's the Mall of America. It's a very large mall. I think it has four floors. Honestly, I try and avoid it at all costs because it is a little overwhelming to go into.
But anyway, there are these giant floors and different wings of the mall, and escalators connect the different floors. And if you look from the bottom floor all the way to the top, you think, "Wow, that's a long way to go. That's going to take me a really long time." But then, as you go up, you get more perspective. You start to see the ceiling or the floor of these different stages and see your progress until you reach the top.
There's no issues when we think about this in terms of a building, of the floors and ceilings being there. So I really encourage you to consider that gap that I'm talking about here, of the floor and the ceiling, really is not a problem if you just use it as information and understand that it's a natural part of your evolution as a business owner and the evolution of the business too.
This is where I want to encourage you to always be looking for the progress. Essentially, don't be on the escalator complaining about the number of floors left or wishing you were on a different part of the escalator. I know this is easier said than done at times, but just keep reminding yourself, this is where I am, this is where I'm going, and eventually I will get there. You will break your ceiling in the way that you're meant to if you keep at it.
I also want to remind you again of you've gone through these cycles. You've broken through ceilings in your business. You've created new floors. You've set new ceilings. It really is just a continual process that you sign up for when you build a business. And the more that we can be at peace with that and proactively show up to move past those internal set points, the smoother the ride will be, and honestly, it tends to be quicker too when we're not in resistance.
The only problem is if you're bumping up against a ceiling and you don't realize it's a ceiling because you're going against that same problem, or you keep being like, "Why does this keep happening? Why do I keep facing this over and over again?" And this is why coaching is so effective. It's that outside perspective I give my clients because I can see what they can't see because they are too in it.
I, of course, believe deeply in the power of coaching, whether that is working with me, someone else, or doing your own reflection practices. You know, I'm always talking about the weekly evaluation. I brought it up earlier, but we really do need to consistently be looking at what are those patterns, what are those themes? What keeps occurring that I haven't solved for, because we don't want to ignore those. We want to address them and start to test solutions so that we can move beyond them.
If you're joining me in Create Your 2026 Roadmap, we'll be doing a thorough but curious evaluation of this past year so that I can help you spot where are you bumping up against those same issues, making things harder than they need to be, or even just being sneaky with ourselves. Sometimes we kind of go behind our own back to keep ourselves safe, keep ourselves on that floor, and not moving forward towards the ceiling.
So know that if you're joining me and I've already signed up, we'll be doing this. And if you haven't, get on it. But we will evaluate last year so that you identify the floors and the ceilings, whether you got stuck or you moved past it and now can leverage the lessons learned from how you did that to create even more momentum.
As we wrap up, I want to give you some prompts to explore this concept and see how it's showing up for you specifically. In doing this, you're going to consider where are you today and where do you want to be. Where you are today is that floor. Where you want to be at the end of 2026 is a ceiling.
And probably if we were to take this even farther, there's lots of ceilings that are going to occur even between that year-long process of achieving your overarching goal. But what type of person do you believe could achieve the goal that you have in mind for 2027? I want you to think about this in your head. You can write it down, but describe them. What are their habits, their behaviors, their levels of willingness, how they show up? All those things, picture them clearly.
And then you're going to reflect on how what you shared as a description compares to the way you currently think about yourself, your own capabilities, and what's possible for you. And in that comparison, I want you to just notice what comes up, what do you see, what do you feel. And then I want you to ask yourself, where might I want to stay rooted to this current floor, and why?
All behaviors have good reasons. They are maybe not the behaviors you want to take or the decisions you want to make, but your brain probably was trying to protect you in some way. It usually comes down to that. So there's some payoff to staying stuck, to staying put, and we want to know what that is, so we can explore that and move past it.
And that leads me to the last question of: What stories do you need to release in order to break through your next ceiling? That's a really good one, too. So see what emerges, and then you can bring all of that to Create Your 2026 Roadmap, where I will help you navigate whatever it is you're seeing or encountering in terms of challenges and coach you through it all.
So, not only will you be strategically approaching your goals with a very clear process, mapping out your entire year, quarter by quarter, with my support, you're also going to have the opportunity to get that personalized feedback and coaching from me so that you have the mindset and emotional tools to move past those sticking points that exist in all of us.
Make sure you sign up before the end of the day, December 16th, because that's how you'll get the early bird pricing of $47. After the 16th, it is going to go up to $87. So it's a really good deal if you're planning on joining me. You might as well save the money, right?
It's desiid.com/2026roadmap to sign up. You'll get all the details there, full sales page, and then of course, can check out, and the code is sort of like already embedded into the checkout. So you don't have to do anything special to get that early bird pricing as long as you sign up before the 16th. Of course, if you're listening to this after the 16th, you can definitely join us. It'll just be at the regular pricing, which is why I'm encouraging you to just get on it now if you're listening.
All right. So the next episode is actually going to be released December 24th. I celebrate Christmas, so that's Christmas Eve for me. And I know it's going to be a time for a lot of us, whatever you celebrate, that it's a little more quiet in business, and maybe you're taking some time off. So I have something short and special planned for you. It's going to be the perfect way to wrap up this year, close this chapter, and move on to the next.
Make sure you're following the show so that you don't miss that one. And until then, I am wishing you a beautiful holiday season and hope to see many of you at Create Your 2026 Roadmap.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
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