UTAR Centre for Corporate and Community Development hosted a webinar titled Borne Identity - Your Identity Determines Your Performance on 14 January 2022 via Zoom. The webinar aimed to help participants conquer their workplace anxieties and grow their careers. The invited speaker was Chokmun Soong, a qualified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) coach and an NLP trainer accredited by the NLP Association of Australia. Chokmun is also a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with the British Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

In the one-hour webinar, Chokmun explained what identity is; how to identify who we are; what drives our performance; and how to improve our identity. “Identity includes the memories, experiences, connections and values that contribute to one’s sense of self. Through time, this fusion provides a consistent feeling of who one is, even as new elements are produced and assimilated into one’s identity,” Chokmun explained.

Chokmun also explained that a person can hold multiple identities and these identities changes according to the surrounding settings such as home, workplace, among friends, in the community, and in the spirit world. “You might be a son or a daughter, or to be more specific, you could be a highly responsible son or daughter. This too is referred to as identity,” he said. He also said that identity is influenced by how one sees themselves, their work, and their surroundings.

Speaking of change, he stated that identity change is linked to belief change. He also said that change provides an opportunity for one to improve their performance. According to Chokmun, there are various methods to change one’s identity using the NLP. During the talk, he taught participants one of the methods called “The swish” which is used to remove undesirable identity and replace it with the desired identity.

While demonstrating the method, he said, “The first step in this approach is to visualise yourself in a frame with the identity you wish to shed. Then blur the unfavourable image, fade it, and convert it to black and white. Then, in your mind, place the persona you wish to have, such as a confident you, in the bottom left-hand corner and make it brighter and clearer. Lastly, concentrate on expanding and covering the whole old picture several times until it is successfully removed.” Chokmun also encouraged the participants to practise that method at home.

The webinar finally concluded with a Q&A and group photography sessions.