Your brain has a blueprint for the world around you. A blueprint that’ll shape how you live your life. If you believe people are kind, you’ll meet kind people. If you believe that people only come into your life to take advantage of you, you’ll meet people who will take advantage of you. The same is true for how you view yourself and your potential. This makes identity-based habits so powerful.
Below we’ll look into what identity-based habits are, how habits affect your personality, some examples, and how you can use them to improve your life.
What are identity-based habits?
Identity-based habits are behaviors you do because of who you are. Most of these behaviors will come easy to you as you’re not trying to change or be someone else. You’re simply trying to be the person you know yourself to be.
If you see yourself as an athlete, you’ll find exercising natural, and creating the habit will be easy. Eating the right things, getting enough sleep and rest, and other behaviors you connect to the identity will follow.
Related: How to make working out a habit
If you consider yourself lazy, you’ll find that being inactive, eating unhealthy food, procrastinating, and many other bad habits will come easier to you. Even if you want to change that.
You most likely have multiple identities. They might change depending on who you’re with and what you’re doing.
Someone who considers themselves an athlete might think that they’re lazy in every other part of their life. They exercise and eat healthily but procrastinate when they have to study.
If you see yourself as having a negative identity, it doesn’t mean you can’t change your habits. We’ll look into that further down.
How habits shape your identity
Your identity shapes your habits. But your habits can also shape your identity.
Every time you do something that goes against your identity, you’ll remove a small part of the blueprint your brain has created for who you are. If you continue to do this enough times, you’ll create a new identity for yourself.
You might not consider yourself to be a reader, but you begin to create the habit of reading. Slowly, as the habit is formed, you go against the blueprint. You can overwrite it and create a new identity. This identity can be a reader, and it gets easier to keep the habit.
When you create a new habit that begins to change your identity, it’ll become easier to create other good habits to confirm this new identity.
Related: How to use keystone habits to make change easy
Examples of identity-based habits
Let’s have a look at some examples of identity-based habits.
You identify as a reader
As you identify as a reader there’ll be no friction when you create the habit of reading. Reading will be more enjoyable and easier to maintain.
You identify as a good student
If you identify as a good student, you’ll be more likely to show up to lessons on time, study, and hand assignments in on time.
You identify as someone with insomnia
If you identify as someone with insomnia, you’ll find it harder to create a good bedtime routine, and you’ll struggle to fall asleep.
You identify as someone lonely
If you identify as someone lonely, you’ll find it hard to approach people. When people do approach you, you’ll find it harder to let them in.
Related: How to find your hidden habits
How identity-based goals can help you create the right habits
Identity-based goals are goals you have for a new identity you want to create. Of who you’d like to become.
It can be hard to figure out which habits will help you reach your goals. But if your goal is to become a specific type of person, it will be easier to find behaviors that will shape this new identity.
When you have an identity-based goal, you can use this goal to see if habits match this persona. You can do this by asking yourself:
Would a _____ do this?
If the persona would do this, it’s most likely a good habit that can lead you towards your goal. If the answer was no, you probably shouldn’t do it.
How to use identity-based habits to improve yourself
Identity-based habits are great for self-improvement. While it might be tempting to try to identify as an entrepreneur or an athlete from day one, it often won’t work. If you have a negative identity now, your new identity will be too far away from your current one. It will be hard to maintain.
A better way to do this is to find one behavior that will bring you closer to your identity goal instead of trying to change it all at once. You can do this by asking, “Would a _____ do this?” or maybe you already have behavior on your mind.
If your goal is to create a successful blog, the habit you want to form could be writing. If your goal is to write, you can practice identifying yourself as a writer instead of a business owner.
If your goal is to get in shape, the habit you want to form could be working out. If your goal is to work out, you can practice identifying yourself as someone who works out instead of an athlete.
Being a writer isn’t enough to create the identity of a business owner or someone who works out to be an athlete. But it’ll bring you closer. And as you get closer, you’ll find that creating other habits that get you even closer to your goal will be easier.
Start small and work yourself up to become who you dream about being. Great people didn’t become great overnight. They became great by constantly improving their identity through small changes.
Related: The best habits for improving yourself
Sum up
Identity-based habits are behaviors you do because of who you think you are. If a behavior fits your identity, it’ll be easier to make into a habit.
You can use identity-based goals to find the best habits for you to create. Ask yourself, ” Would a _____ do this?” If the answer is yes, the behavior fits your identity-based goal.
Identity-based habits are a great way for you to improve yourself. Think of the habits your dream identity would have. Slowly implement them one by one. Soon, it won’t just be a dream anymore.
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