Building Better Habits

Hi, I’m David Timis and my mission in life is to prepare people for the future of work.?

In this week’s edition of the newsletter the theme revolves around building better habits, and in the process becoming who you truly are. Because building better habits isn’t about achieving external measures of success like earning more money, losing more weight, etc., it’s about becoming someone, the person you aspire to be, the person you are meant to be. Habits are the channel through which you develop your deepest beliefs about yourself and the more you repeat a certain habit the more you reinforce the identity associated with it. Quite literally, you become your habits, and so it’s vital to be mindful when building them. Below are some insights and thoughts that will help you build better habits in 2023.?

Timeless Insight

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” – James Clear

Probably one of the most common productivity-related misconceptions is that the best way to achieve what we want in life (e.g. getting in shape, building a successful business, etc.) is by setting specific and actionable goals. We grow up setting goals and we grow old trying to achieve them without realising that our success has very little to do with the goals we set and nearly everything to do with the systems we follow. Therefore, are goals completely useless? Of course not. Goals are important for setting a direction, for defining the outcomes we want to achieve, but systems are essential for making progress, for putting in place the processes (daily habits) that lead to the outcomes we desire. For example, if you’re Didier Deschamps, head coach of the France national football team, your main goal is to win the World Cup. Your system is based on the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches, and conduct practice before and during the competition. But, if you ignored your main goal, winning the World Cup, and focused only on what your team does in practice each day, would you still succeed? I’d say so, since the only way to win in any sport is to get better each day through practice. The same is true for other areas of your life. If you want to achieve better results, spend less time setting goals and more time refining your systems.

Food for Thought?

Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” What Aristotle figured out nearly 2400 years ago is the transformational power of habits, which play a crucial role when it comes to how you embody and influence your identity. Every belief you have about yourself and the world around you is learned and conditioned through the experiences you had over the years, especially those you had during childhood.?

Whatever your identity is right now it emerged out of the habits you build over the years. For example, if you write something each day you embody the identity of a creative person. If you go to the gym to train every single day you embody the identity of an athletic person. The more you repeat a behaviour, the more evidence you have for a belief about yourself, and so, the more strongly you will believe it and reinforce the identity associated with it.?

Habits are by no means the only actions that influence your identity, but by virtue of their frequency over the years they are usually the most important ones in shaping who you are. Each experience you have in life modifies the image you have about yourself in some way, but the most long-lasting effects comes from the actions/activities you repeat most often. Therefore, habits contribute most of the evidence that shapes your identity, your self-image.?

The process of habit-building is the process of becoming yourself, of embodying your identity or of changing your identity, if the habits you’ve developed are negative ones. Change takes time though. You do not change by just deciding to be someone entirely new. You change gradually, step by step, day by day, habit by habit, and every action you take is a vote of confidence for the type of person you wish to become in the future, your ideal-self.?

Putting everything together, it becomes quite obvious that the key to meaningful change doesn’t require radical actions, but rather small improvements that you make over the years, which provide evidence of a new identity. If you cast the same votes you’ve always cast, you’re going to get the same results you’ve always had and nothing is going to change. Thus, new identities require new evidence, new habits. Here’s what you can do about it:?

1. Decide the type of person you want to be - 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. Work backward from the results you want to the type of person who could get those results.?

2. Prove it to yourself with small wins - Once you get a better understanding of the type of person you want to be, you can begin taking small steps to reinforce your desired identity. For example, if you want to lose weight, ask yourself “What would a healthy person do?” and use this question as a guide throughout the day to help you make more healthy choices.

Each and every single one of us has the power to change, whatever that change might be, because our identities are not set in stone, they are shaped by the daily habits we reinforce. And just like a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it, you must persevere and perform the habit day in and day out until the hundred and first blow when the rock will split in two, and you’ll have done it!

Becoming the type of person you wish to become, just like a journey of a thousand miles, begins with one step. You first need to know who you want to be, otherwise your quest for meaningful change will be without a guiding light and you will get lost along the way. Therefore, now that there are only two weeks left from this year, take a step back and reflect on who you want to become in 2023 and what habits can help you to be that type of person.

For building better habits the book that had the most impact in my life and that inspired me to write the above 'Food for Thought' is 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear. I recommend it!

Article of the Week?

Making a Change: One Small Step

Caricature of the Week

Source: Condé Nast

Thank you for reading and keep on growing!

David

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Did you enjoy this article and would like to read more? Subscribe to my Grow Your Career weekly digest to get the latest editions of my newsletter delivered directly to your inbox.?

Are you looking for a career coach that can help you navigate your career transition and ultimately get more meaning out of your work? If yes, please reach out to me on LinkedIn.