Why is it so easy to repeat bad habits and so hard to form good ones? However, once your habits are established, they seem to stick around forever -- especially the unwanted ones.
Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the wrong thing and (2) we try to change in the wrong way.
There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.You can imagine them like the layers of an onion. The first layer is outcome change, concerned with changing your results. Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change. The second layer is process change, concerned with changing your habits and systems. Most of the habits you build are associated with this level. The third and deepest layer is identity change, concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your judgements about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases you hold are associated with this level.
Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe. All levels of change are useful in their own way. The problem is the direction of change. Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. 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.
Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first person says, "No thanks, I'm trying to quit," It sounds like a reasonable response, but this person still believes they are a smoker who is trying to be something else. They are hoping their behavior will change while carrying around the same beliefs. The second person declines by saying, "No thanks, I'm not a smoker." It's a small difference, but this statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was part of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone who smokes.
The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achive, but on who you wish to become. The real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can't get too attached to one version of your identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. In fact, the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly. Your identity is literally your "repeated beingness." This is a gradual evolution. We do not change by snapping our fingers and deciding to be someone entirely new. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by habit. We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self.
Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself. You become your habits.
Saduran dari: Clear, James. 2018. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Chapter 2).
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