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Every once in a while, I feel I need to lose weight, adopt a healthy diet, and do some exercise every day. For one or two days, I try to stick to this resolution. However, eventually, all the enthusiasm fizzles out, and before I know it, I am back with my old ways of living.
I contrast this with my habit of reading and writing. These are activities which I picked up only three years ago. However, I can’t imagine my life without them.
Why do some habits become an integral part of our lives, while others don’t stick and feel like hassle only after a few days? To understand this, I decided to read ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. Published in the year 2018, it is one of the most influential books on habit formation in recent times. One of the earlier chapters in the book talks about how your habits shape your identity (and vice versa).
Our first mistake while trying to change any habit is that we try to change the wrong thing. To understand this, we consider the three levels at which any change can occur.
The first layer is changing our outcomes, which is concerned with changing your results. Hence, the goals you set are associated with this level of change.
The second layer is changing your process, which is concerned with changing your habits and systems.
The third layer is changing your identity, which is concerned with changing your beliefs, assumptions, and biases – about yourself and the world around you.
A more natural way to understand these layers is through ‘The Golden Circle’ explained by Simon Sinek in his book ‘Start With Why’ and his famous TED talk. Hence, the outcomes are your “what”; the processes are your “how”; the identity is your “why”.
To begin the process of changing their habits, many people focus on what they want to achieve. Hence the sequence becomes: Outcome => Process => Identity. This can be termed as outcome-based-habits.
However, a better alternative is building identity-based-habits by focusing on who we wish to become. Here, the sequence becomes: Identity => Process => Outcome.
Most people do not consider identity change when they set out to improve. Hence, goals are set, and actions are determined without considering the set of beliefs that drive those actions. Thereby, behaviors that do not match with the self don’t tend to last.
The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes an integral part of your identity. The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more you are likely to be motivated to maintain all the habits associated with it.
The question which then emerges is: where does your identity come from in the first place? Interestingly, they arise out of your habits. When you read each day, you embody the identity of a reader. When you work each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person.
The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the ideas associated with that behavior. Think about it, whatever your identity is, the only reason you believe it is because you have substantial proof of it. If you are a healthy person, you have the hours of workout and a healthy body to prove it.
It is not a one-off process. This is a gradual progression. We change each day. Every action we take is a vote of confidence for the type of person you wish to become.
Hence, changing habits is a two-step process:
Decide the type of person you want to be and prove it to yourself with small wins.
To summarize, your habits are developed because of your identity, and that identity is determined by the choices you make each and every day.
Written by - Snehil Kesarwani
Edited by - Chhavi Gupta
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