1, #98 - Behavior starts with identity

Identity has more to do with becoming than with being, and it’s a process that starts right from birth.

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.

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.

Try to think of identity as hierarchy. At the top are the roles, which don’t mean anything in and of themselves but are simply shorthand for a set of values that live underneath. These values are then associated with actual behaviors, because identity is really a sentence we tell ourselves and others: “I’m the kind of person who [value/behavior].”

Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity.

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 orga

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.

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