What is it that holds you back from being excellent?
For a lot of people that I coach as a performance psychologist the answer is ‘bad habits.’ Or the struggle to build ‘good habits’ that develop performance success and excellence.
We can all relate to this in some way, as old, bad habits are tough things to shake off and new, improving habits are difficult to form. These habit obstacles can get in the way of performance excellence and for some, this can be impactful not only for performance, but mental health also.
Research evidence is showing that behaviours linked to identity have a greater chance of being repeated and then becoming new habits.
The habit-identity link
The science related to habits shows that a lot of your everyday behaviours are habitual (e.g. Verplanken & Sui, 2019). That is, they occur frequently, are repeated, and often happening automatically without having to think about doing them. Another feature of habits is complexity. Some habits involve simple behaviours, such as nail biting or tapping fingers, with others being way more multidimensional, like running marathons, or dedicating time to community. The other important feature is importance. Habits will vary from the unimportant, that you will have little awareness of, to those that are tied to an important aspect of yourself.
Science is now demonstrating that behaviours linked to attributes that characterize an important self-identity are motivationally stronger, and are therefore more likely to become a habit.
What about goals?
Goals are hugely important to serve to motivate behaviour, but only if they are constructed in the right way (I’ll explain in another article!). The major limiting aspect of goals when it comes to behaviour change is that they are future-focused. The reward comes at the end. For example, the dieter’s wanted body-image, the executive’s desired promotion, the athlete’s longing for a medal. There is a long, long way to go to achieve these for many people and that’s why the initial actions dwindle over time and often cease. The effort that you apply today, may not signal reward for some time to come. How many people buy a gym membership that lasts 6 weeks, for example?
Consider a self-identity
When thinking about behaviour change, most people start out with their focus on the end state of what you want to achieve (e.g. ‘I want to be 5kg lighter’). In contrast, research evidence (Verplanken & Sui, 2019) is linking successful behaviour change with a focus to the importance of who you are, or who you want to become (e.g. ‘I am a healthy person’).
Consider some of your current habitual behaviours – good or bad. You may have a strong self-identity of being loyal, which means that you continue to provide volunteer support to a local charity or community group. You may identify as someone that is not organised in certain areas of your life, leading to you habitually being late. This means that your current behaviours will reflect aspects of your existing self-identity. A self-identity that works for you or one that does not.
The interesting feature of habits linked with identity is that they have the power to work reciprocally.
- I am a successful performer therefore I train/study every day.
- I train/study every day because I am a successful performer.
You can see that rather than being future-focused, a behaviour linked with self-identity is grounded in the present moment. This means that what you do in the moment, the effort you apply, aligns with this identity and this offers a sense of reward. It has the potential to offer motivation even when you have to put in hard work and effort at the time.
Steps for creating change
Creating any new behaviour to become habit is tough. It requires self-awareness, cognitive and often physical effort, as well as persistence to dedicate the time to the new behaviour. So, recognise that the journey to a new habit will have some small level of discomfort. If it doesn’t, you’re not changing!
1) The first step is to establish a clear expression or picture of what the desired self-identity is:
- I am a healthy eater
- I am a professional athlete
- I am a successful managing director
- I am resilient
- I am a compassionate person
- I am a great friend
- I am the best version of me
It is important that you take time to establish this with clarity. Fuse this with who you are or who you want to be.
2) The next step is to consider what attributes or behaviours do these self-identities include. How will you know when you are acting/behaving in alignment with this chosen self-identity?
- I am a healthy eater – so I plan my healthy meals
- I am a professional athlete – so I dedicate time to training every day
- I am a successful managing director – so I role model effective behaviours
- I am resilient – so I turn toward challenges
- I am a compassionate person – so I take action to alleviate my suffering and others
- I am a great friend – so I regularly reach out to speak to my friendship circle
- I am the best version of me – so I do one thing every day that will serve me well in the future
In doing this exercise, I suggest writing down the big actions/behaviours that are needed to align with your self-identity, and more importantly, to note the small, simple actions/behaviours.
The reason for this is straightforward. Taking big actions can serve to illuminate when you are really aligning with your self-identity. But that is hard. You are less likely to keep those going every day. The solution to building new habits is to do repeated behaviours and that’s why I suggest turning to the small actions.
3) Step three is to choose one, small, simple attribute that aligns with your chosen self-identity and make a non-negotiable contract that you will do this 5 days a week.
What one very small thing can you change that would support an identity of your wanting? I call these small actions steps the 1%ers. They may see insignificant, but over time, with enough of these 1% changes, you end up making huge changes.
Initially make this a new behaviour so that you don’t have to commit too much time to it. The key factor here is being able to repeat this behaviour frequently.
Commit to this small new behaviour and when you have successfully mastered this as a new habit, choose another attribute and make this into a new behaviour that you can commit to.
4) Reflect and congratulate yourself – important!
The brain will not adopt new, effortful behaviours unless it thinks that new behaviour is worthwhile. So, you need to update the brain to offer it this information.
Each time you successfully master the new behaviour into your day, congratulate yourself. Take a moment to reflect on how this new behaviour is helping you align to a self-identity that is important to you. This new behaviour, which right now is effortful, is rewarding because it helps you to maintain or reach being the person you want to be.
Recognise that creating new, effective habits takes time. Habits fused with identity are more likely to work as they are present-moment focused, they offer consistency in and around life’s instability, and the work you put in aligns with something that is important to you.
Stuart is a performance psychologist with a proven track record of helping elite athletes and corporate executives be better versions of themselves. He has conducted major research on an 8-session performance psychology and mindfulness psychology program with elite athletes and corporate executives. This evidence-based program has been demonstrated to improve performance awareness, has led to performance empowerment, and performance resilience. Contact Stuart for more details.
References:
Verplanken, B., & Sui, J. (2019). Habit and identity: Behavioral, cognitive, affective, and motivational facets of an integrated self. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 452537.