Being the change starts with who you think you are

One person uses a sharp mind to bring people together. Another uses the same sharpness to push them apart. The intelligence is identical. The difference is identity.

That idea sits at the center of Being the Change (CGF 194), an 8-week course from ASU Universal Learner Courses about creating purpose in a world that keeps shifting. Anyone can take it: a high school student, a college student or an adult weighing their  next step. Before it asks you to change the world, it asks you to meet yourself.

What does it mean to be the change?

To be the change means to start with your own identity before you try to fix anything outside you. Most people reach for new habits, new goals or new plans while leaving their sense of self untouched. The order matters. Who you believe you are comes first. What you do follows from there.

You are not your roles

Your name, your grades, your friend group, the family you come from: these are roles you carry. They are useful. They are not the whole truth of who you are.

There are three layers worth pulling apart. Roles are what you do. Stories are what you inherited from family and culture. Essence is who you are underneath the labels.

The aim is to hold your identity on purpose, so it works for you instead of boxing you in.

Why identity comes before behavior

In Atomic Habits, James Clear makes a simple point: lasting change starts with identity, not willpower.

When you try to change what you do without changing who you think you are, the old self pulls you back. Someone who says “I’m trying to run more” still fights for every workout. Someone who says “I’m a runner” laces up without the argument. Behavior tends to follow the self-image, so the self-image is where the work begins.

A narrow identity creates conflict. A wide one makes room.

Shrink your identity to a few labels and the world splits fast into us and them. Widen it and there is more room to think, build and get along with people who see things differently.

Identity is what divides them. Two people can share every fact and still land in different worlds, because each carries a different sense of who they are.

There is a bigger frame worth trying on. Every atom in your body was forged in stars. The carbon in your hands and the iron in your blood came from the same place as the carbon and iron in everyone else. A self that big is hard to box in, and easier to create with.

How do you find your purpose?

Purpose grows out of identity. Once you can see your roles, your stories and your essence clearly, you can build something steady on top of them. A purpose that fits who you are holds up better than one you talk yourself into.

This matters whether you are picking a major, applying to college or deciding what comes next. The usual order is backwards. We choose a path and hope it turns us into someone. Start with who you are, and the path fits.

It travels into work, too. Employers want changemakers: people who can adapt, lead and work across differences. That skill starts as inner clarity and shows up in how you move through a team.

Who leads the course?

Being the Change is led by Mentor Dida, the Global Futurist in Residence at ASU’s Rob Walton College of Global Futures. He has spent his career building learning spaces for changemakers. Before ASU he worked at Ashoka, the global network of social entrepreneurs, where he led Youth Venture and scaled the Spiritual Changemakers Initiative worldwide, and he later co-founded Changemaker Allies. He grew up in Kosovo, where he co-founded a nonprofit to expand opportunity at home.

Through interactive media and tools, stories, AI and hands-on work, you’ll explore five timeless patterns of changemaking: Identity, Ignorance (Openness) and Responsibility (Responding), Presence and Service.You work through it as guided practice alongside a group of other changemakers, and you finish with a clear, concrete sense of the purpose you want to build your life and work around.

Start the course

Being the Change runs 8 weeks and carries 3 ASU credits. New sessions open throughout the year, so you can start when you are ready. You begin for $25, and you pay the $400 course fee only if you pass.

Meet yourself first. The rest of the change follows.

Enroll in Being the Change (CGF 194)