We are on the verge of a new year. Have you given any thought to who you’d like to be in 2022?
The beginning of a new year is often when we feel the most hope for change. We set ambitious resolutions, make extensive plans and promise ourselves this year will be different. Unfortunately, most people who make resolutions don’t make it through January before throwing in the towel.
Why is that? How can we have good intentions, along with a plan, and still not make our planned changes a reality?
In his book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear says, “The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.” He refers to this as identity-based habits.
It’s taking that external resolution and using it to shift your internal reality. Ask yourself, “If nothing was holding me back, who would I be?”
For example, if my goal is to be a more organized person in 2022, hitting the Container Store on January 1 and spending an exorbitant amount of money on baskets and containers won’t cut it.
Instead I have to use action to “become” the person I’d like to be, i.e. put an item away as soon as I’m through with it, instead of coming back to it later. The more I engage in this behavior the more I will see “proof” of my identity as an organized person.
The small daily actions you engage in will accumulate to determine my life outcomes. To use this tool, follow Clear’s advice to:
Decide who would you like to become in 2022. If you have trouble with this he suggests identifying the result you’d like to achieve and working backward to determine what type of person would achieve that result.
Name the small daily action(s) that type of person would take in order to help get you to that identity. And if it’s available to you, also write the feeling you associate with that action. It’s important to get specific here.
Engage in one of the small daily actions you identified until it becomes second nature. For my organized example this may look like “reseting” one room as I leave it with a feeling of ease.
Locked that action in? Add another action that helps you achieve your result.
Can you see and feel the identity you’d like to have next year?
The choice is yours.
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