The Habit Identity Paradox | Atomic Habits by James Clear

The Habit-Identity Confusion | Atomic Habits by James Clear

I’ve always enjoyed writing. But something or another always led me to drop it. The same almost happened for this account, as after 17–18 articles, I have lost the motivation to keep writing. I always had this nagging feeling that I was not writing an article, but things seemed too daunting.

I hid away from the feeling and continued writing an article once or twice a month. But now, things are different. I decided to write daily. What will I write? About the things I read.

What the author shares about habits

The author shares an interesting insight in the second chapter of Atomic Habits. He shares that we never follow up on our tasks because they don’t sync with our identity.

We stop writing a journal because it’s some additional task we pick up, not something we identify with. We stop reading books in the middle because we don’t think of ourselves as someone who enjoys reading a book. Is that true? I wanted to ponder on this.

My battle with my weight.

The first thing I remembered about identity was my simple interaction with others. It was an office lunch, and we were ordering food. While selecting the food, they asked me if I eat meat, and I answered, saying that I am a vegetarian. Look at the last sentence, “I am a vegetarian”. I should’ve technically answered that I don’t eat meat. But what I answered was different; I even answered it as if it was something natural. Why? It was simple: I’ve never eaten meat since childhood, and over 23 years, it has become part of my identity.

So, I looked back at what I’ve always wanted to do and have succeeded in doing. The first thing that struck my mind was losing weight. I’ve always been obese for years. I mean, I was “the fat kid” for 10–15 years, and I inherently accepted this and stopped caring about it. But the problem was I was trying to lose weight every time as a fat kid.

You can’t believe how many times I’ve restarted the gym and quit after 2–3 months, how many times I’ve restarted my diet and quit it in the middle. I wanted to make eating healthy or working out a habit, not a task I must do. But I failed in doing that.

What I understand now.

But based on what the author states, it’s an identity problem, not a motivation or commitment problem. So, what should my identity be? A physically fit person? A healthy guy? A guy who doesn’t eat junk? No, all these are actions. And I was extremely uncomfortable introducing myself as a healthy person, while I’m not one. But that’s the problem; not everything has a label and needs one. It’s a different perspective.

The answer to this becomes clear in the latter parts of the chapter, i.e. at the end of pg.39, where it becomes clear that the identity is something iteratively defined, i.e. You use the identity as the north star and navigate in the sea of actions that can be taken. Whenever you realise things need a change, you adjust your north star accordingly and change your actions.

So, the actions I have to take should be determined not by “what I have to do to lose weight” but rather by “what someone who is losing weight chooses” or “what someone physically fit in their eighties does”.

I have been building habits for this and other goals recently, and unlike the previous times, I want them to stick around. I know I am late to this whole thing, but it’s not too late to transform myself. But, for that, I need to follow what’s later discussed in the book and commit myself to my goal. That’s easier said than done.

At the very least, I plan to become a decent writer and the action a decent writer takes is to write consistently. Hence, I will continue writing about what I read and many other things. What are a few things that you need to change your identity for? Think about it and share them in the comments!

I hope you found something of value in this note today! Let’s meet tomorrow again, with better and more interesting reflections!

Thanks for reading till the end! Until next time–happy reading! ✌️