Getting Stuck in Identity Habits
“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.”
— James Clear, Identity-Based Habits
Identity is an essential element of change. When you want to establish a new habit, you are establishing a new identity; with that, you are shedding away part of your current identity. Identity is what you believe about yourself, how you project yourself to the world, and how the people around you react to your individuality. If your identity is reinforced and approved, you are more likely to stick with it and make it even more yours.
If your identity is disapproved by the people around you, it is much more challenging to keep your identity unless you score very low in personality trait agreeableness and you fully believe in the way you perceive yourself that you have the psychological willpower and natural disposition to be okay with disapproval from other people.
Either way, changing aspects of your identity may feel incredibly challenging because over time we cling to our identities and feel comfortable in them. Even a small hole pierced through the identity mask and your whole sense of self can crumble a little and create uncertainty and deep psychological discomfort.
Yet, as James Clear points out in his article, establishing new habits in your life requires attaching them to your identity. You are the type of person who does X. You do not wish to be the type of person. You do not rely on the fallible sense of motivation within you to implement a new behavior into your daily life. You commit to it by attaching the habit to your identity, which requires commitment and fully believing in the habit because of the vulnerable and profound nature of your identity, crafted through words, thoughts, and behaviors throughout your entire life.
Once you establish a habit and your new identity, the process of identity change does not end there. And this is something I have heard very seldom. Your desire to establish new habits—incorporate new pieces into your identity—is likely infinite due to our natural tendency to constantly adapt to the present and desire a better situation (i.e., hedonic adaptation).
At the same time, clinging to your present identity shaped over many years can prevent you from trying to establish new ways of being, particularly if your past and present behaviors and beliefs have been serving you well and you are overall content with your life.
The higher-performing human is the one who can let go of the baggage of thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and possessions accumulated over time to incorporate new identities that can serve them well in the present and future days. This is akin to the scientific process: constantly seeking new evidence (truth) and adopting it into one’s belief system, letting go of what once was evidence and has now become obsolete.