How Atomic Habits helped me get on the New Zealand team for the World Powerlifting Masters Championships in Italy

I still can’t believe I got to see THE James Clear – in person – on a stage this week in Auckland, New Zealand. I admit it, I’m a total fangirl (possibly even the cringeworthy kind!) but there are few books I’ve read that changed me as profoundly as his has.

?I‘ve always had a “thing” for personal growth. In fact, “growth” is one of my personal value drivers. In particular, I’ve had a fascination with ways I can improve my performance be that work, career, business, triathlons, half marathons – or these days competition powerlifting.? So, when one of my favourite coaches Tash Pieterse introduced me to Atomic Habits a few years ago it was an endorsement that piqued my curiosity and I ordered a copy on the spot!

I’ve referenced Atomic Habits innumerable times since reading it. As an internationally certified coach myself, I’ve used it to help leaders and teams navigate their way through organisational change and transformation

Equally it has helped me with my own professional development, to level-up in areas I need to be effective in my business and I give it significant credit for recently helping me achieve a competition powerlifting goal.

I’ve been powerlifting for 3 years now. I’ve always like weights and resistance training but I was a complete newbie to the sport of powerlifting. I started training with a coach who is a record holder in her Master’s class and a total machine (she isn’t on Linked In so I can’t tag her!). Within 7 weeks – SEVEN! – she had me on a platform at my first competition in the novice category. Even though I found it to be one of the most terrifying experiences ever, I was hooked.

?

“Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future”

– James Clear, Atomic Habits

Like many steep learning curves and “heat experiences” that I’ve had in my life over the years, there’s ALWAYS one thing that tries to trip me up: self-limiting beliefs.

Atomic Habits offers SO MUCH but if I had to pick one thing I can personally vouch for as a game changer, it’s his idea of Identity-Based Habits. Changing behaviour can be hard. Learning new skills can be tedious. Progress can be slow. But what I learned through the book is that true behaviour change requires an identity change. Which sounds a bit jarring and “hey wait a minute there” at first, but I’ve found it to be the best way to cross the chasm of knowing to doing or dreaming to being.

So, when I set myself the moonshot goal of competing at the World Powerlifting Masters Championships in Italy later this year, I got on the front foot with overcoming my self-limiting beliefs using Identity-Based Habits. There are three layers to this approach to behaviour change: Identity, Processes and Outcomes. Here’s what it looked like for me:

Identity

This is the layer you start with. It’s the deepest layer and the hardest one because it may require you to say some stuff out loud or write down a sentence that makes you feel verrrrry uncomfortable! Why? Because for me it meant I had to face straight into the beliefs I held about myself, my self-image and the way I constantly judged myself. It meant trying to let go of the horrible things I would say to myself that undermined my confidence. In order to achieve my goal I needed to be clear about the person I wished to become: I am a competition powerlifter.

?

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems”

– James Clear, Atomic Habits

?

Processes

This is the layer where the rubber hits the road. Because to embody your identity, you need to change your habits and your systems. In order for me to take daily actions towards becoming my identity of a competition powerlifter I needed to implement new training regimes and routines. So for me this meant adding conditioning training to my lifting program, experimenting with things like cold plunge therapy and infra-red saunas to support recovery, getting nutritional advice about my diet (as a vegetarian I find it hard to get enough protein), regular appointments with a naturopath to make sure my supplements plan is still effective, blood work every 3 months to monitor my iron and having IV infusions when I need them, sports hypnotherapy to help with the absolute mindf*ck that competition environments can have on me which I habit stack into my regular mindset work.

When I’m having a low day or a self-doubt day these routines and habits help provide me with the evidence that the things I’m doing daily reflect the identity of the person I wish to become – even when I don’t believe I’m worthy of being a competition powerlifter.

?

“Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become”

– James Clear, Atomic Habits

?

Outcomes

These are the results you want from the changes you’ve decided to make in order to become your identity.? At first, I was solely focused on the metrics going onto the bar. How heavy I was lifting. Obviously, this was the money shot when it came to qualifying for the World Champs team but when I also focused on the peripheral results of my behaviours the goal and my “why” became so much more meaningful. My results were the progressions, succeeding at the qualifiers, hitting my PB’s, my protein intake etc but I also tracked my wellbeing alongside other family and business goals to integrate everything across my whole-of-life outcomes. Not only does this feel incredibly fulfilling it has improved the congruency of all the things that are important to me AND my family.

?

I credit Atomic Habits with helping me do the inner work I needed to do for achieving my powerlifting goals. Using identity-based habits helped me overcome the self-limiting beliefs holding me back and cultivate the behaviours that moved me closer to the person I want to be.

This is by no means a footnote! It wasn't just the book. I’m very grateful for the humans in my life that have helped me achieve my goal of representing New Zealand in World Powerlifting Masters Championships in Italy: first and foremost my husband Jim who encourages me every day, my almost-4 year old daughter who comes to deadlift training with me every Sunday because her Dad works and counts out my reps for me, my coach, my crew I lift with and my family and friends who drop me notes of support because they know how much this goal means to me.

They’ve all helped me become the person I aspire to be, so when I board that plane for Rome in October I’ll be thinking about each and every one of them and hope that I’ll make them proud ??

#atomichabits #moonshots #goals #selflimitingbeliefs #habits #identity #outcomes #results #coaching #personalgrowth #growth #wellbeing #powerlifting growthfaculty

?

?

?

?

?

?