Here is today’s Game and what’s going on.
Here is what I discovered today in our Dadly Daily Declaration readings from the second part of Chapter 2 of Atomic Habits by James Clear. The title of this chapter is “How Your Habits Shape Your Identity.”
Here are a few highlights from today’s readings:
- Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience.
- Your habits are how you embody your identity. When you make your bed, you embody the identity of an organized person. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person.
- The more you repeat a behavior the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior.
- Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have proof of it. There evidence you have for a belief, the more strongly you will believe it.
- Your habits, by virtue of their frequency, are usually the most important actions that influence your identity. The effect of habits get reinforced with time, which means your habits contribute most of the evidence that shapes your identity.
- The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.
- Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change.
- Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it actually is big.
- The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
- Each time you write a page, you are a writer.
- Each time you start a workout, you are an athlete.
- Each time you encourage your employees, you are a leader.
- Each habit not only gets results but also teaches you something far more important: to trust yourself. You start to believe you can actually accomplish these things. When the votes mount up and the evidence begins to change, the story you tell yourself begins to change as well.
- New identities require new evidence. If nothing changes, nothing is going to change.
- Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. It’s a two-way street, a feedback loop. It’s important to let your values, principles, and identity drive the loop rather than your results. The focus should always be on becoming the type of person you desire to be, not getting a particular outcome.
Those gems lead us to today’s Dadly Daily Declaration:
You have the power to change your beliefs about yourself. Your identity is not set in stone. You have a choice in every moment. You can choose the identity you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today.
Building better habits isn’t about littering your day with life hacks. Habits are not about having something; they are about becoming someone.
Your habits matter because they help you become the type of person you wish to be. They are the channel through with you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits.
