Identity-based habits
The beliefs you have about yourself can drive your long-term behavior.
You could trick yourself into going to the gym or eating healthy once or twice, but if you don't shift your underlying identity, then it's hard to stick with long-term changes.
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... and building better habits is your identity.
Each action you perform is driven by the belief that it is possible. So if you change your identity (the type of person that you believe that you are), then it’s easier to change your actions.
Your habits are not the only actions that influence your identity, but by virtue of their frequency, they are usually the most important ones.
So the most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
Your habits are how you embody your identity. The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior.
When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person.
- A change in your outcomes
- A change in your processes
- A change in your identity.
Most people start by focusing on outcome-based goals like “I want to lose 20 pounds”. But these are surface-level changes.
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Building these habits means focusing on the type of person you wish to become rather than the outcome you wish to achieve.
Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. To change your behavior for good, you need to start believing new things about yourself.
Whether it is a resolution to lose weight, to do more exercise, or to consume less sugar, we all have encountered hardships trying to stick with them.
Health-related New Year Resolutions are easy to make, but hard to implement. We all could use some healthy behavior changes that continue past January.
10 Science-backed Tips to Making a Health Behavior Change that Sticks
medium.com
- “It's hard for me to lose weight.”
- “I'm not good with numbers.”
- “I'm not a natural athlete.”
- “I'm not creative.”
- “I'm a procrastinator.”
...it's clear that those fixed mindsets will cause you to avoid experiences where you might feel like a failure. As a result, you don't learn as much and it's hard to get better.
Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset: How Your Beliefs Change Your Behavior
jamesclear.com
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