Change Starts from the inside out

Notes

Claim

When you try to change yourself, don't start by focusing on your actions—like saying "I want to lose 5 pounds"—but rather focus on the identity you want to adapt: "I want to be a healthy person".

Explanation

Focusing on the identity provides the motivation, the direction, and the longevity of a successful change, instead of actions which are short-sighted, lack the "why", and irrelevant once completed Focusing on process and consistency yields better results than obsessing over outcomes. Instead of forcing ourselves to act in a certain way, we rewrite our life narrative in a way that makes us wish to embrace that new lifestyle.

When we embrace a new identity, we allow ourselves to change across time Identity persists across time through psychological continuity. We manage to implement our Examine your desires not just your actions as a source for change. This is opposite to the idea of Being emerges from action not belief, the idea that change, learning, and being comes from experimentation and action, not self affirming statements.

However, embracing a new identity is not so easy. One can argue that even in the best case scenario, our identities are not replaced, rather layered on top of another, so the range of potential identities that we can embrace is limited by who we were in the past.

Why it matters

When we embrace a new identity rather than just changing our actions, we implement a Capabilities are malleable through effort and learning, we prove that not only we can act differently, we can become a different, better person. Also, claiming a new identity is like a Fresh start—we are not limited by the actions, tendencies and behaviors of our "past self". Rather we are now someone new who could adopt a new lifestyle without previous baggage.

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Overview

🔼Topic:: Identity Formation ◀Origin:: Atomic Habits (book) 🔗Link::