Who Do You Wish to Become?
“The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.” James Clear
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Who Do You Wish to Become?
One of my daily habits is to read for 20 minutes every morning. I have a great pile of books next to my bed and on my Kindle that are either waiting, or “in progress”. One of these is the best-selling book Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is serving me a rich store of ideas on healthy habits.
There are many self-help books on the subject of habits and if you summarise them their advice seems to fall into two basic parts:
From the outside in – namely managing the mechanics of your habits with small wins, clear goals, supportive friends etc, and
From the inside out – namely decide who you want to become and then behave as if this were true.
It is this inside out concept that grabbed me, along with the exercise to decide which persona you wish to be. An example used is someone who wanted to lose a huge amount of weight, and each time they were tempted to binge eat or skip a gym session they asked themselves the simple question “so what would a fit and healthy person do?” The result was that the weight not only fell off them because their habits changed to match the desired persona, but they remained fit and healthy well beyond the required weight loss.
When we set goals detailing a specific outcome (for example, lose 50kg), then once the outcome is achieved the habit is no longer compelling, so we tend to return to our old self. In contrast, when we seek to change the “way we are” – the persona we have identified, then this becomes the new reality.
So, if you are someone seeking to improve anything in your life, be it greater wisdom, a new language, improved fitness or to be more empowered and happier, you might also enjoy adding this different method to your goal setting.
Whatever you decide, I wish you a week of living your own empowered and amazing self to the full!
