Atomic Habits-2

(beginning with Chapter 2)

2 How Your Habits Shape Your Identity(and Vice Versa)
"Few things can have a more powerful impact on your life than improving your daily habits. And yet it is likely that this time next year you’ll be doing the same thing rather than something better."

Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way.


 * 1st layer: changing your outcomes. This level is concerned with changing your results: losing weight, publishing a book, winning a championship. Most goals we set are associated with this level of change.


 * 2nd layer: changing your process. This level is concerned with changing your habits and systems: implementing a new routine at the gym, decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing a meditation practice. Most of the habits you build are associated with this level.


 * 3rd and deepest layer: changing your identity. This level is concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your judgments about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases you hold are associated with this level.

Most people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become. Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs. Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last; It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are; the ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it.

True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. When your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be. Once you have adopted an identity (no matter how unconsciously), your allegiance to it will impact your ability to change. Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly following the norms subconsciously attached to their self-identity.