Identity and Habits are a closed loop. Who you are is what you do and what you do is who you are. 

So here are some simple-ish ideas on how to make that work for you.

Know Thyself

That seems so simple it barely bears being said, but taking stock of one’s self before beginning the road to habit change is perhaps one of the best things you can do. Why? Because you have to know where you are before you can move from there. If you don’t know where you’re beginning, you may never get to where you want to go. Some of this stock taking is easy. After all, if you want to be a person who is in shape, then it stands to reason you are currently a person who is out of shape. However, that’s only the top level of considering your identity because that doesn’t drill down to how you got to be the way you are. Do you happen to have a junk food problem? That could be the sign of an addictive personality*. Maybe it’s a “motivation” thing; you think you’re lazy. This could be because you’re so much of a perfectionist you don’t want to risk failure by trying. In short, level one is easy, but getting down deeper requires a good hard look in the mirror. (*I’m not a doctor and can’t diagnosis anything.*)

To use myself as an example, I used to think I was a moderately lazy individual who just didn’t know how to clean properly. What I didn’t realize, and probably never would have found out if I hadn’t KonMari’d my life, was that I really just had so much stuff I had no attachment to that cleaning it felt futile. In this case, I made a change based on a personal event and learned something new about myself. Gretchen Rubin in “Better than Before”, calls this the strategy of the Lightning Bolt. Something happened, which seemed almost inconsequential, and a portion of my identity changed. In her book, she chalks up a serious change in her eating habits to gaining new information from reading. These days, I’m cleaner than I’ve ever been because I have less stuff I don’t care about clogging up my life.

Choose the Journey

In the Hero’s Journey, the Hero is offered a chance to change and initially they refuse the call because being who they are is comfortable and familiar. Nothing has to change. Therefore, nothing does. However, you wouldn’t have much of a story if the hero just went back to their life without going on some grand adventure, now would you? So at some point they have to make the choice to make the change. This is the ‘Pill Moment’ in The Matrix. I love this scene. Neo makes the decision to leave his world behind in search of knowledge. Truthfully though, that decision is a foregone conclusion as soon as he chooses to stay in the car with Trinity and gang. She distills his understanding in a few words with “You’ve been down that road,” meaning he was just going to go back to where he had always been. No wiser, nothing. He had already refused the call once by choosing not to take the scaffold, but he was more willing to risk what he had in that moment though he literally had a gun pointed in his face.

Why I didn’t use a more traditional Hero’s Journey example such as the original Star Wars. Outside events act on Luke Skywalker to make him go forth on his journey and that’s not the kind of journey I want to base my idea on. Outside events such as cancer or home loss or something else drastic can definitely be a burn the boats moment in your life sending you hurtling forward into a new chapter, but I’m thinking more in terms of what makes you make the choice to change without anything horrific happening.

All that aside, you have to choose the journey you wish to take. If you want to change, you’re going to have to CHOOSE TO CHANGE.

Who Do You Want To Be

Here comes the fun part: Designing the New You.

Here are a couple caveats. First, don’t get so happy with designing the new you that you never make any motion on your journey. It’s fun to take portions of your life and figure out how they could be 10x better, but if it never gets to be any more than a daydream, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Remember: A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Second, scale your expectations. Just because you can see all of it on paper doesn’t mean you’re ready to do all of it at the same time. Habits take energy and time to form, so give each of them the energy and time necessary to catch hold. James Clear has a fantastic strategy he calls the Two Minute Rule. Simply stated “a new habit should take 2 minutes to complete.” For example, read at night means read one page. So, as you are starting each of your new habits, first start with the 2 minute version until you can scale up.

Third, no, you will most likely not be able to fly with the power of your mind.

So let’s design. I want to be happier, healthier, wealthier and better looking. Okay, those are all worthy pursuits, but there’s one big problem: How do you quantify these things? You’ve probably heard the quote, what gets measured, gets managed. Therefore, you need to set up ways to measure your goals. So first, break them into things you can check off.

Happier: Did I do one thing that made me happy today? (Pet my cat, read a book)
Healthier: Did I do one thing that made me healthy today? (Eat a healthy meal, work out)

You get the idea. In the framework I use, it is a yes or no question. Yes, I did. No, I didn’t. Something you can check off. This is one of the things I love about Bullet Journal Habit Trackers. They generally deal in yes/no. Either you did it and you get to color in the square or you didn’t and you don’t. Simple and easy.

Second, there’s a standard idea in habit formation of not breaking the chain. Originally from Jerry Seinfeld, the concept is simple: don’t break the chain of your habit. If you’re supposed to do something every day, do it every day and check it off. If it is every other day or three times a week on M, W, F… you get the idea. Set up a way to see your chain.

Third, Profit. If you’ve set up a way to see your chain and you’ve been diligent, you reap rewards. In fact, you reap rewards even if you haven’t been diligent because by setting up a way to see the chain, you KNOW where you are slacking.

Okay, okay, so what does all this habit formation stuff have to do with identity? I have a quote on my wall from George Bernard Shaw: “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” What does that mean? It means, you are always in the process of becoming, at least in my understanding, and your habits are how you become who you are. You are ever reinforcing who you are by the habits you choose to adopt. Once again: Who you are is what you do and what you do is who you are. The closed loop of habits and identity.