THE
FUNDAMENTALS
Why Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference 1
The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits
THE FATE OFBritish Cycling changed one day in 2003. The organization, which was
the governing body for professional cycling in Great Britain, had recently hired
Dave Brailsford as its new performance director. At the time, professional
cyclists in Great Britain had endured nearly one hundred years of mediocrity.
Since 1908, British riders had won just a single gold medal at the Olympic
Games, and they had fared even worse in cycling's biggest race, the Tour de
France. In 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won the event.
In fact, the performance of British riders had been so underwhelming that one
of the top bike manufacturers in Europe refused to sell bikes to the team because
they were afraid that it would hurt sales if other professionals saw the Brits using
their gear.
Brailsford had been hired to put British Cycling on a new trajectory. What
made him different from previous coaches was his relentless commitment to a
strategy that he referred to as "the aggregation of marginal gains," which was the
philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do.
Brailsford said, "The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down
everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by
1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together."
Brailsford and his coaches began by making small adjustments you might
expect from a professional cycling team. They redesigned the bike seats to make
them more comfortable and rubbed alcohol on the tires for a better grip. They
asked riders to wear electrically heated overshorts to maintain ideal muscle
temperature while riding and used biofeedback sensors to monitor how each
athlete responded to a particular workout. The team tested various fabrics in a
wind tunnel and had their outdoor riders switch to indoor racing suits, which
proved to be lighter and more aerodynamic.
But they didn't stop there. Brailsford and his team continued to find 1 percent improvements in overlooked and unexpected areas. They tested different types
of massage gels to see which one led to the fastest muscle recovery. They hired a
surgeon to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the
chances of catching a cold. They determined the type of pillow and mattress that
led to the best night's sleep for each rider. They even painted the inside of the
team truck white, which helped them spot little bits of dust that would normally
slip by unnoticed but could degrade the performance of the finely tuned bikes.
As these and hundreds of other small improvements accumulated, the results
came faster than anyone could have imagined.
Just five years after Brailsford took over, the British Cycling team dominated
the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where
they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available. Four years
later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they
set nine Olympic records and seven world records.
That same year, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the
Tour de France. The next year, his teammate Chris Froome won the race, and he
would go on to win again in 2015, 2016, and 2017, giving the British team five
Tour de France victories in six years.
During the ten-year span from 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world
championships and sixty-six Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured
five Tour de France victories in what is widely regarded as the most successful
run in cycling history.*
How does this happen? How does a team of previously ordinary athletes
transform into world champions with tiny changes that, at first glance, would
seem to make a modest difference at best? Why do small improvements
accumulate into such remarkable results, and how can you replicate this
approach in your own life?
WHY SMALL HABITS MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE
It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and
underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis. Too
often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action.
Whether it is losing weight, building a business, writing a book, winning a
championship, or achieving any other goal, we put pressure on ourselves to
make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.
Meanwhile, improving by 1 percent isn't particularly notable—sometimes it
isn't even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding.
Here's how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one
year, you'll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you're done.
Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you'll decline
nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates
into something much more.
1% BETTER EVERY DAY
1% worse every day for one year. 0.99
365 = 00.03
1% better every day for one year. 1.01
365 = 37.78
FIGURE 1: The effects of small habits compound over time. For example, if you can get just 1 percent better each day, you'll end up with results that are nearly 37 times better after one
year.
Habits are the compound interest of selfimprovement. The same way that
money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply
as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day and yet
the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only
when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good
habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.
This can be a difficult concept to appreciate in daily life. We often dismiss
small changes because they don't seem to matter very much in the moment. If you save a little money now, you're still not a millionaire. If you go to the gym
three days in a row, you're still out of shape. If you study Mandarin for an hour
tonight, you still haven't learned the language. We make a few changes, but the
results never seem to come quickly and so we slide back into our previous
routines.
Unfortunately, the slow pace of transformation also makes it easy to let a bad
habit slide. If you eat an unhealthy meal today, the scale doesn't move much. If
you work late tonight and ignore your family, they will forgive you. If you
procrastinate and put your project off until tomorrow, there will usually be time
to finish it later. A single decision is easy to dismiss.
But when we repeat 1 percent errors, day after day, by replicating poor
decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalizing little excuses, our small
choices compound into toxic results. It's the accumulation of many missteps—a
1 percent decline here and there—that eventually leads to a problem.
The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of
shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying
from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the
heading just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C., instead of
New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff—the nose of the
airplane moves just a few feet—but when magnified across the entire United
States, you end up hundreds of miles apart.*
Similarly, a slight change in your daily habits can guide your life to a very
different destination. Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse
seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a
lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who
you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime
transformations.
That said, it doesn't matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now.
What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success.
You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your
current results. If you're a millionaire but you spend more than you earn each
month, then you're on a bad trajectory. If your spending habits don't change, it's
not going to end well. Conversely, if you're broke, but you save a little bit every
month, then you're on the path toward financial freedom—even if you're
moving slower than you'd like.
Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a
lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of
your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits.
Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat.
If you want to predict where you'll end up in life, all you have to do is follow
the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and see how your daily choices will
compound ten or twenty years down the line. Are you spending less than you
earn each month? Are you making it into the gym each week? Are you reading
books and learning something new each day? Tiny battles like these are the ones
that will define your future self.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply
whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time
your enemy.
Habits are a double-edged sword. Bad habits can cut you down just as easily
as good habits can build you up, which is why understanding the details is
crucial. You need to know how habits work and how to design them to your
liking, so you can avoid the dangerous half of the blade.
YOUR HABITS CAN COMPOUND FOR YOU OR AGAINST YOU
Positive Compounding
Productivity compounds. Accomplishing one extra task is a small feat on any given day, but it counts for a lot over an entire career. The effect of automating an old task or mastering a new
skill can be even greater. The more tasks you can handle without thinking, the more your brain is free to focus on other areas.
Knowledge compounds. Learning one new idea won't make you a genius, but a commitment to lifelong learning can be transformative. Furthermore, each book you read not only teaches
you something new but also opens up different ways of thinking about old ideas. As Warren Buffett says, "That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest."
Relationships compound. People reflect your behavior back to you. The more you help others, the more others want to help you. Being a little bit nicer in each interaction can result in a
network of broad and strong connections over time.
Negative Compounding
Stress compounds. The frustration of a traffic jam. The weight of parenting responsibilities. The worry of making ends meet. The strain of slightly high blood pressure. By themselves, these
common causes of stress are manageable. But when they persist for years, little stresses compound into serious health issues.
Negative thoughts compound. The more you think of yourself as worthless, stupid, or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way. You get trapped in a thought loop. The
same is true for how you think about others. Once you fall into the habit of seeing people as angry, unjust, or selfish, you see those kind of people everywhere.
Outrage compounds. Riots, protests, and mass movements are rarely the result of a single event. Instead, a long series of microaggressions and daily aggravations slowly multiply until one
event tips the scales and outrage spreads like wildfire.
WHAT PROGRESS IS REALLY LIKE
Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room
is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently twenty-five degrees. Ever so
slowly, the room begins to heat up.
Twenty-six degrees.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-eight.
The ice cube is still sitting on the table in front of you.
Twenty-nine degrees. Thirty.
Thirty-one.
Still, nothing has happened.
Then, thirty-two degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one-degree shift,
seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a
huge change.
Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which
build up the potential required to unleash a major change. This pattern shows up
everywhere. Cancer spends 80 percent of its life undetectable, then takes over
the body in months. Bamboo can barely be seen for the first five years as it
builds extensive root systems underground before exploding ninety feet into the
air within six weeks.
Similarly, habits often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical
threshold and unlock a new level of performance. In the early and middle stages
of any quest, there is often a Valley of Disappointment. You expect to make
progress in a linear fashion and it's frustrating how ineffective changes can seem
during the first days, weeks, and even months. It doesn't feel like you are going
anywhere. It's a hallmark of any compounding process: the most powerful
outcomes are delayed.
This is one of the core reasons why it is so hard to build habits that last.
People make a few small changes, fail to see a tangible result, and decide to stop.
You think, "I've been running every day for a month, so why can't I see any
change in my body?" Once this kind of thinking takes over, it's easy to let good
habits fall by the wayside. But in order to make a meaningful difference, habits
need to persist long enough to break through this plateau—what I call the
Plateau of Latent Potential.
If you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or break a bad one, it is
not because you have lost your ability to improve. It is often because you have
not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. Complaining about not achieving
success despite working hard is like complaining about an ice cube not melting
when you heated it from twenty-five to thirty-one degrees. Your work was not
wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.
When you finally break through the Plateau of Latent Potential, people will
call it an overnight success. The outside world only sees the most dramatic event
rather than all that preceded it. But you know that it's the work you did long ago
—when it seemed that you weren't making any progress—that makes the jump
today possible.
It is the human equivalent of geological pressure. Two tectonic plates can
grind against one another for millions of years, the tension slowly building all the while. Then, one day, they rub each other once again, in the same fashion
they have for ages, but this time the tension is too great. An earthquake erupts.
Change can take years—before it happens all at once.
Mastery requires patience. The San Antonio Spurs, one of the most successful
teams in NBA history, have a quote from social reformer Jacob Riis hanging in
their locker room: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter
hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a
crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I
know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before."
THE PLATEAU OF LATENT POTENTIAL
FIGURE 2: We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we hope it will come quickly. In reality, the results of our efforts are often delayed. It is not until months or years later
that we realize the true value of the previous work we have done. This can result in a "valley of disappointment" where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or months of hard work
without experiencing any results. However, this work was not wasted. It was simply being stored. It is not until much later that the full value of previous efforts is revealed.
All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a
single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows
stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a
bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a
good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.
But what determines whether we stick with a habit long enough to survive the
Plateau of Latent Potential and break through to the other side? What is it that causes some people to slide into unwanted habits and enables others to enjoy the
compounding effects of good ones?
FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life—
getting into better shape, building a successful business, relaxing more and
worrying less, spending more time with friends and family—is to set specific,
actionable goals.
For many years, this was how I approached my habits, too. Each one was a
goal to be reached. I set goals for the grades I wanted to get in school, for the
weights I wanted to lift in the gym, for the profits I wanted to earn in business. I
succeeded at a few, but I failed at a lot of them. Eventually, I began to realize
that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to
do with the systems I followed.
What's the difference between systems and goals? It's a distinction I first
learned from Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the Dilbert comic. Goals are
about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead
to those results.
If you're a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your
system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches,
and conduct practice.
If you're an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar
business. Your system is how you test product ideas, hire employees,
and run marketing campaigns.
If you're a musician, your goal might be to play a new piece. Your
system is how often you practice, how you break down and tackle
difficult measures, and your method for receiving feedback from your
instructor.
Now for the interesting question: If you completely ignored your goals and
focused only on your system, would you still succeed? For example, if you were
a basketball coach and you ignored your goal to win a championship and
focused only on what your team does at practice each day, would you still get
results?
I think you would. The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous
to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win
is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill
Walsh, "The score takes care of itself." The same is true for other areas of life. If
you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system
instead.
What do I mean by this? Are goals completely useless? Of course not. Goals
are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress. A
handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your
goals and not enough time designing your systems.
Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.
Goal setting suffers from a serious case of survivorship bias. We concentrate on
the people who end up winning—the survivors—and mistakenly assume that
ambitious goals led to their success while overlooking all of the people who had
the same objective but didn't succeed.
Every Olympian wants to win a gold medal. Every candidate wants to get the
job. And if successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the
goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers. It wasn't the goal
of winning the Tour de France that propelled the British cyclists to the top of the
sport. Presumably, they had wanted to win the race every year before—just like
every other professional team. The goal had always been there. It was only when
they implemented a system of continuous small improvements that they achieved
a different outcome.
Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
Imagine you have a messy room and you set a goal to clean it. If you summon
the energy to tidy up, then you will have a clean room—for now. But if you
maintain the same sloppy, pack-rat habits that led to a messy room in the first
place, soon you'll be looking at a new pile of clutter and hoping for another burst
of motivation. You're left chasing the same outcome because you never changed
the system behind it. You treated a symptom without addressing the cause.
Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That's the
counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our
results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are
the systems that cause those results. When you solve problems at the results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good, you need
to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix
themselves.
Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: "Once I reach my goal, then I'll
be happy." The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you're continually
putting happiness off until the next milestone. I've slipped into this trap so many
times I've lost count. For years, happiness was always something for my future
self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained twenty pounds of muscle or
after my business was featured in the New York Times, then I could finally relax.
Furthermore, goals create an "either-or" conflict: either you achieve your goal
and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You mentally box
yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is misguided. It is unlikely that
your actual path through life will match the exact journey you had in mind when
you set out. It makes no sense to restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when
there are many paths to success.
A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love with the
process rather than the product, you don't have to wait to give yourself
permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.
And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you
first envision.
Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
Finally, a goal-oriented mind-set can create a "yo-yo" effect. Many runners work
hard for months, but as soon as they cross the finish line, they stop training. The
race is no longer there to motivate them. When all of your hard work is focused
on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it? This is
why many people find themselves reverting to their old habits after
accomplishing a goal.
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building
systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less
thinking. It's not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of
endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your
commitment to the process that will determine your progress. A SYSTEM OF ATOMIC HABITS
If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The
problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not
because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for
change.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your
systems.
Focusing on the overall system, rather than a single goal, is one of the core
themes of this book. It is also one of the deeper meanings behind the word
atomic. By now, you've probably realized that an atomic habit refers to a tiny
change, a marginal gain, a 1 percent improvement. But atomic habits are not just
any old habits, however small. They are little habits that are part of a larger
system. Just as atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the
building blocks of remarkable results.
Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that
contributes to your overall improvement. At first, these tiny routines seem
insignificant, but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that
multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of their initial investment. They
are both small and mighty. This is the meaning of the phrase atomic habits—a
regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but also the
source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth. Chapter Summary
Habits are the compound interest of selfimprovement. Getting 1
percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.
Habits are a double-edged sword. They can work for you or against
you, which is why understanding the details is essential.
Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a
critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding
process are delayed. You need to be patient.
An atomic habit is a little habit that is part of a larger system. Just as
atoms are the building blocks of molecules, atomic habits are the
building blocks of remarkable results.
If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on
your system instead.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your system
How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice
Versa)
WHY IS IT so easy to repeat bad habits and so hard to form good ones? Few things
can have a more powerful impact on your life than improving your daily habits.
And yet it is likely that this time next year you'll be doing the same thing rather
than something better.
It often feels difficult to keep good habits going for more than a few days,
even with sincere effort and the occasional burst of motivation. Habits like
exercise, meditation, journaling, and cooking are reasonable for a day or two and
then become a hassle.
However, once your habits are established, they seem to stick around forever
—especially the unwanted ones. Despite our best intentions, unhealthy habits
like eating junk food, watching too much television, procrastinating, and
smoking can feel impossible to break.
Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) we try to change the
wrong thing and (2) we try to change our habits in the wrong way. In this
chapter, I'll address the first point. In the chapters that follow, I'll answer the
second.
Our first mistake is that we try to change the wrong thing. To understand what
I mean, consider that there are three levels at which change can occur. You can
imagine them like the layers of an onion.
THREE LAYERS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE FIGURE 3: There are three layers of behavior change: a change in your outcomes, a change in your processes, or a change in your identity.
The first layer is changing your outcomes. This level is concerned with
changing your results: losing weight, publishing a book, winning a
championship. Most of the goals you set are associated with this level of change.
The second layer is changing your process. This level is concerned with
changing your habits and systems: implementing a new routine at the gym,
decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing a meditation practice.
Most of the habits you build are associated with this level.
The third and deepest layer is changing your identity. This level is
concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your
judgments about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and
biases you hold are associated with this level.
Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is
about what you believe. When it comes to building habits that last—when it
comes to building a system of 1 percent improvements—the problem is not that
one level is "better" or "worse" than another. All levels of change are useful in
their own way. The problem is the direction of change.
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. OUTCOME-BASED HABITS
IDENTITY-BASED HABITS FIGURE 4: With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.
Imagine two people resisting a cigarette. When offered a smoke, the first
person says, "No thanks. I'm trying to quit." It sounds like a reasonable
response, but this person still believes they are a smoker who is trying to be
something else. They are hoping their behavior will change while carrying
around the same beliefs.
The second person declines by saying, "No thanks. I'm not a smoker." It's a
small difference, but this statement signals a shift in identity. Smoking was part
of their former life, not their current one. They no longer identify as someone
who smokes.
Most people don't even consider identity change when they set out to
improve. They just think, "I want to be skinny (outcome) and if I stick to this
diet, then I'll be skinny (process)." They set goals and determine the actions they should take to achieve those goals without considering the beliefs that drive their
actions. They never shift the way they look at themselves, and they don't realize
that their old identity can sabotage their new plans for change.
Behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs. The system of a
democracy is founded on beliefs like freedom, majority rule, and social equality.
The system of a dictatorship has a very different set of beliefs like absolute
authority and strict obedience. You can imagine many ways to try to get more
people to vote in a democracy, but such behavior change would never get off the
ground in a dictatorship. That's not the identity of the system. Voting is a
behavior that is impossible under a certain set of beliefs.
A similar pattern exists whether we are discussing individuals, organizations,
or societies. There are a set of beliefs and assumptions that shape the system, an
identity behind the habits.
Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last. You may want more
money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then
you'll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning. You may want
better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment,
you'll be drawn to relaxing rather than training. It's hard to change your habits if
you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have
a new goal and a new plan, but you haven't changed who you are.
The story of Brian Clark, an entrepreneur from Boulder, Colorado, provides a
good example. "For as long as I can remember, I've chewed my fingernails,"
Clark told me. "It started as a nervous habit when I was young, and then
morphed into an undesirable grooming ritual. One day, I resolved to stop
chewing my nails until they grew out a bit. Through mindful willpower alone, I
managed to do it."
Then, Clark did something surprising.
"I asked my wife to schedule my first-ever manicure," he said. "My thought
was that if I started paying to maintain my nails, I wouldn't chew them. And it
worked, but not for the monetary reason. What happened was the manicure made
my fingers look really nice for the first time. The manicurist even said that—
other than the chewing—I had really healthy, attractive nails. Suddenly, I was
proud of my fingernails. And even though that's something I had never aspired
to, it made all the difference. I've never chewed my nails since; not even a single
close call. And it's because I now take pride in properly caring for them."
The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your
identity. It's one thing to say I'm the type of person who wants this. It's
something very different to say I'm the type of person who is this.
The more pride you have in a particular aspect of your identity, the more motivated you will be to maintain the habits associated with it. If you're proud
of how your hair looks, you'll develop all sorts of habits to care for and maintain
it. If you're proud of the size of your biceps, you'll make sure you never skip an
upper-body workout. If you're proud of the scarves you knit, you'll be more
likely to spend hours knitting each week. Once your pride gets involved, you'll
fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.
True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of
motivation, but the only reason you'll stick with one is that it becomes part of
your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy
once or twice, but if you don't shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard
to stick with long-term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they
become part of who you are.
The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a
musician.
Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity. What you do is an
indication of the type of person you believe that you are—either consciously or
nonconsciously.* Research has shown that once a person believes in a particular
aspect of their identity, they are more likely to act in alignment with that belief.
For example, people who identified as "being a voter" were more likely to vote
than those who simply claimed "voting" was an action they wanted to perform.
Similarly, the person who incorporates exercise into their identity doesn't have
to convince themselves to train. Doing the right thing is easy. After all, when
your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing
behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already
believe yourself to be.
Like all aspects of habit formation, this, too, is a double-edged sword. When
working for you, identity change can be a powerful force for selfimprovement.
When working against you, though, identity change can be a curse. Once you
have adopted an identity, it can be easy to let your allegiance to it impact your
ability to change. Many people walk through life in a cognitive slumber, blindly
following the norms attached to their identity. "I'm terrible with directions."
"I'm not a morning person."
"I'm bad at remembering people's names."
"I'm always late."
"I'm not good with technology."
"I'm horrible at math."
. . . and a thousand other variations.
When you have repeated a story to yourself for years, it is easy to slide into
these mental grooves and accept them as a fact. In time, you begin to resist
certain actions because "that's not who I am." There is internal pressure to
maintain your self-image and behave in a way that is consistent with your
beliefs. You find whatever way you can to avoid contradicting yourself.
The more deeply a thought or action is tied to your identity, the more difficult
it is to change it. It can feel comfortable to believe what your culture believes
(group identity) or to do what upholds your self-image (personal identity), even
if it's wrong. The biggest barrier to positive change at any level—individual,
team, society—is identity conflict. Good habits can make rational sense, but if
they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.
On any given day, you may struggle with your habits because you're too busy
or too tired or too overwhelmed or hundreds of other reasons. Over the long run,
however, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets
in the way. This is why you can't get too attached to one version of your
identity. Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself
requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your
identity.
This brings us to an important question: If your beliefs and worldview play
such an important role in your behavior, where do they come from in the first
place? How, exactly, is your identity formed? And how can you emphasize new
aspects of your identity that serve you and gradually erase the pieces that hinder
you?
THE TWO-STEP PROCESS TO CHANGING YOUR IDENTITY
Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs.
Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through
experience.* More precisely, your habits are how you embody your identity. When you
make your bed each day, you embody the identity of an organized person. When
you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you
train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person.
The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity
associated with that behavior. In fact, the word identity was originally derived
from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which
means repeatedly. Your identity is literally your "repeated beingness."
Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have
proof of it. If you go to church every Sunday for twenty years, you have
evidence that you are religious. If you study biology for one hour every night,
you have evidence that you are studious. If you go to the gym even when it's
snowing, you have evidence that you are committed to fitness. The more
evidence you have for a belief, the more strongly you will believe it.
For most of my early life, I didn't consider myself a writer. If you were to ask
any of my high school teachers or college professors, they would tell you I was
an average writer at best: certainly not a standout. When I began my writing
career, I published a new article every Monday and Thursday for the first few
years. As the evidence grew, so did my identity as a writer. I didn't start out as a
writer. I became one through my habits.
Of course, your habits are not the only actions that influence your identity, but
by virtue of their frequency they are usually the most important ones. Each
experience in life modifies your self-image, but it's unlikely you would consider
yourself a soccer player because you kicked a ball once or an artist because you
scribbled a picture. As you repeat these actions, however, the evidence
accumulates and your self-image begins to change. The effect of one-off
experiences tends to fade away while the effect of habits gets reinforced with
time, which means your habits contribute most of the evidence that shapes your
identity. In this way, the process of building habits is actually the process of
becoming yourself.
This is a gradual evolution. We do not change by snapping our fingers and
deciding to be someone entirely new. We change bit by bit, day by day, habit by
habit. We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self.
Each habit is like a suggestion: "Hey, maybe this is who I am." If you finish a
book, then perhaps you are the type of person who likes reading. If you go to the
gym, then perhaps you are the type of person who likes exercise. If you practice
playing the guitar, perhaps you are the type of person who likes music.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No
single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does
not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by
providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it actually
is big. That's the paradox of making small improvements.
Putting this all together, you can see that habits are the path to changing your
identity. The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you
do.
Each time you write a page, you are a writer.
Each time you practice the violin, you are a musician.
Each time you start a workout, you are an athlete.
Each time you encourage your employees, you are a leader.
Each habit not only gets results but also teaches you something far more
important: to trust yourself. You start to believe you can actually accomplish
these things. When the votes mount up and the evidence begins to change, the
story you tell yourself begins to change as well.
Of course, it works the opposite way, too. Every time you choose to perform a
bad habit, it's a vote for that identity. The good news is that you don't need to be
perfect. In any election, there are going to be votes for both sides. You don't
need a unanimous vote to win an election; you just need a majority. It doesn't
matter if you cast a few votes for a bad behavior or an unproductive habit. Your
goal is simply to win the majority of the time.
New identities require new evidence. If you keep casting the same votes
you've always cast, you're going to get the same results you've always had. If
nothing changes, nothing is going to change.
It is a simple two-step process:
1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.
First, decide who you want to be. This holds at any level—as an individual, as
a team, as a community, as a nation. What do you want to stand for? What are
your principles and values? Who do you wish to become?
These are big questions, and many people aren't sure where to begin—but
they do know what kind of results they want: to get six-pack abs or to feel less anxious or to double their salary. That's fine. Start there and work backward
from the results you want to the type of person who could get those results. Ask
yourself, "Who is the type of person that could get the outcome I want?" Who is
the type of person that could lose forty pounds? Who is the type of person that
could learn a new language? Who is the type of person that could run a
successful start-up?
For example, "Who is the type of person who could write a book?" It's
probably someone who is consistent and reliable. Now your focus shifts from
writing a book (outcome-based) to being the type of person who is consistent
and reliable (identity-based).
This process can lead to beliefs like:
"I'm the kind of teacher who stands up for her students."
"I'm the kind of doctor who gives each patient the time and empathy
they need."
"I'm the kind of manager who advocates for her employees."
Once you have a handle on the type of person you want to be, you can begin
taking small steps to reinforce your desired identity. I have a friend who lost
over 100 pounds by asking herself, "What would a healthy person do?" All day
long, she would use this question as a guide. Would a healthy person walk or
take a cab? Would a healthy person order a burrito or a salad? She figured if she
acted like a healthy person long enough, eventually she would become that
person. She was right.
The concept of identity-based habits is our first introduction to another key
theme in this book: feedback loops. Your habits shape your identity, and your
identity shapes your habits. It's a two-way street. The formation of all habits is a
feedback loop (a concept we will explore in depth in the next chapter), but it's
important to let your values, principles, and identity drive the loop rather than
your results. The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not
getting a particular outcome.
THE REAL REASON HABITS MATTER
Identity change is the North Star of habit change. The remainder of this book
will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to build better habits in
yourself, your family, your team, your company, and anywhere else you wish. But the true question is: "Are you becoming the type of person you want to
become?" The first step is not what or how, but who. You need to know who you
want to be. Otherwise, your quest for change is like a boat without a rudder. And
that's why we are starting here.
You have the power to change your beliefs about yourself. Your identity is not
set in stone. You have a choice in every moment. You can choose the identity
you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today. And this brings us
to the deeper purpose of this book and the real reason habits matter.
Building better habits isn't about littering your day with life hacks. It's not
about flossing one tooth each night or taking a cold shower each morning or
wearing the same outfit each day. It's not about achieving external measures of
success like earning more money, losing weight, or reducing stress. Habits can
help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having
something. They are about becoming someone.
Ultimately, your habits matter because they help you become the type of
person you wish to be. They are the channel through which you develop your
deepest beliefs about yourself. Quite literally, you become your habits. Chapter Summary
There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and
identity change.
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.
Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the
type of person you wish to become.
Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously
edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better
results (although they can do that), but because they can change your
beliefs about yourself.