One reason we struggle to create and sustain good habits is that we focus on what we should DO instead of WHO we want to become.
Notice which statement resonates more:
“I need to start eating healthier.”
“I am a healthy person.”
The first statement focuses on what’s missing. It shines a spotlight shining into the void. The second is a positive declaration attached to an identity.
And as James Clear writes in his excellent book Atomic Habits,
“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.”
To identify is to “regard as the same.” So, in this way, we must see ourselves as inseparable from the change we seek. There’s a mountain of motivational difference between “I’d like to” and “I am.”
Do you feel it? Good. Now see yourself AS it.
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