Easy Technique for Making Good Habits (& Breaking Bad)

Hey friends,

I just completed reading my first-ever book, Atomic Habits 🥳 . I must say I’m in love with this experience.

TBH I used to think,

“Huh… everybody’s saying READ BOOKS, READ BOOKS. What is so special about reading books? I can never imagine reading such bulky books”

But here we are, in love with this habit. I’ve ordered another book, let’s goo.

Ok, I got a little carried away 😂 .

On this occasion, I’d like to share an idea from this book that’ll make you stick to any good habit or break any bad habit very easily i.e. Identity-based approach.

Identity-based Habits:

Making or breaking a habit is easy. But sticking to it is not.

Good habits are always hard to stick with, and bad habits are always hard to break.

Whenever we decide to break a bad habit, we gather all the motivation in the world and stop doing that habit.

It’ll go great on the first day. Then relatively good on the second day. Decent on the third day.

Then on the fourth day, all the motivation we gathered vanishes and that bad habit starts to break in again.

It’s not a problem with us, but the way we try to break them. MOTIVATION DOESN’T LAST.

Instead what you should do is, try to change your IDENTITY.

What do I mean by this?

Imagine Ramesh and Suresh are trying to quit smoking. When Mahesh came and offered them a smoke, their responses were like this.

Ramesh: No thanks, I’m trying to quit smoking.

Suresh: No thanks, I’m not a smoker.

Now tell me who’s statement is clear and more compelling. Suresh right.

Ramesh’s response sounds very reasonable. But he still believes he’s a smoker and hopes to get rid of it by suppressing the temptation.

And Suresh’s response is very straight and clear. Smoking was a part of his past and not anymore. He doesn’t identify himself as someone who smokes.

It’s the very slight shift in mindset that makes a huge difference.

How I applied this idea to my life

The same idea applies to forming good habits.

I tried book reading a few months ago but stopped it because I lost motivation.

But recently, I gave it another shot. And I’m so glad that I picked THIS book. After reading this technique, I started to tell myself that I’m a reader.

This turned my mindset from “I’m trying to read a book” to “I’m a reader”.

When I identify myself as a reader, I ask myself “What do readers do?”. Reading books, right?

This made me act on what I believe I’m supposed to do. Which is to read a book.

So that slight shift in mindset made me complete an entire book for the first time in my life.

I know I’m over-excited a little bit. But this means a lot to me. And I’m so happy that I get to share this with you.

How are you planning to apply this idea to your life? Please let me know by replying to this email.

See you next Sunday. Bye 👋 

- Teja

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