Claim the Identity, Let the Habit Catch Up

Have you seen alllll the books on habits? The Power of Habit, Atomic Habits, and one of my favorites by the queen of hilarity Jen Sincero, Badass Habits? Like a lot of things in the personal development realm, I really can’t tell if this is taking hold in the wider world, or if I’m in an echo chamber where everyone is as deep into optimizing as I am. 

Well, anywhoo, for the sake of this post it doesn’t really matter. I’m here to chat you up about HABITS, and specifically the two ways that I, and many others, have gone about fetching them into reality for our own lives. 

Numero Uno: The minimum baseline step-up

For me, this is a really solid strategy for something that you dread doing. A goal that has eluded you for yearrrrs, say. A thing that might be difficult because there are…bigger issues going on inside your ol noggin’; real monster reasons why you might not be able to just do the damn thing already (like that old chestnut, worthiness. Etc)

This approach entails setting up the absolute lowest baseline possible and then abiding by it no matter what. 

Such as: you want to get in shape. So, you are going to start Week 1 by putting on your workout shoes five days a week and stepping outside. Then come back inside and take them off. That’s it! You don’t have to do anything else! Yes, correct - it’s going to feel ridiculous! 

Week 2, you put your shoes on, go outside, and walk to the sidewalk and back. Don’t keep going even if you feel like it. Nada mas. That’s it! Again, it feels so ridiculous, yes! 

Week 3, you put on your shoes, you go outside, and you walk around the block. This might start to feel a little less ridiculous when you are doing it five days a week (rain or shine, homie!). 

And so on. 

The point here is that while you’re obviously not going to ramp up into the ‘new you’ in four weeks flat, you will learn to be accountable to yourself. And, surprise, this is actually the first habit you have to instill. Once that is ingrained, like REALLY IN THERE, then you keep adding on (but just little bits at a time my friends!!). 

Numero Dos: Claim the identify first, work your way up

This is an admittedly much less clean and almost certainly more challenging approach, but is my favorite way (now) to instill a new habit. 

I’ll note straight out of the gate that your success with this method is completely, 100% contingent on you being able to hold grace for yourself and not mentally beating yourself up into a bloody pulp of self loathing should you mess up. Which will likely result in you abandoning the whole goal anyway. If you can’t be kind to yourself through this my sweet little strawberry tart, method #1 is for you. For now. 

Strategy #2 involves proclaiming the new identity (doesn’t have to be to the world on social media! Just to yourself (who, by the way, is ultimately the most important person in this scenario… the only person who can really get you to change anyway)). Such as: ‘I am a person who only drinks 1 cup of coffee a day’, or, ‘I am a person who practices good digital boundaries and puts all screens away at 7pm at least five days a week’. 

As you may have guessed, both of these are habits that I have instilled over the last year or so. These were definitely not fun at first. There was a serious messy middle. Because I was used to drinking, well, who could know how many cups of coffee a day, and like most of us, I also had terrible digital hygiene. I knew that both of these things were ramping up my already-high levels of anxiety, and especially in the case of digital boundaries, I knew they were also harming my ability to focus deeply and to DO THE WORK. But golly, they were tough habits to break. 

Claiming the identity first meant that I instilled the new habit immediately, and then worked my way into it. Imperfectly AF. 

Here’s a case study. One of my besties recently decided to cut streaming out of her daily life. She doesn’t own a TV (or a big…screen? Not sure what we call them anymore with streaming), but had gotten into a real binge-y stream-y rabbit hole habit, and decided she had better things to do with her time in the evenings. Bravo. 

There were definitely some buffering activities while she grew into the new identity of someone who doesn’t stream shows (such as increased scrolling, which is something she doesn’t want to do either), and feeling really pace-y and anxious in the evenings at first. Yup, it was messy and uncomfortable. 

But, similar to how she is not someone who wakes up and does a few lines of coke or downs a couple gin and tonics first thing in the morning (and never was, just to be clear, haha), she was now also someone who doesn’t stream shows. This was her new identity, and she worked her way up and into it as the new reality. And in her beautiful house, this is now reflected in all of her interesting stacks of books amongst the well-cared for plants surrounding her living room hammock where she lounges and reads. It’s lovely and calming and restful and intentional. 

Mmmmkay, now, are there times that my bestie might watch the British Baking Show at a friend’s house? Or that I might have a second cup of coffee on a long road trip? Or check my phone after 7pm because of an event or travel the next day? Yes. Of course. 

But the point is, she and I no longer identify as someone who does this on the regular, but as the exception. 

Are there any habits that you have been wanting to incorporate into your life, big or small? Could one of these approaches work for you?