“The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.” -James Clear
The start of a new year can be a time of change and opportunity; a time to improve your life—be that your health, your career, or your relationships. For some, it’s a time to get back to the gym. For others, it may be eating healthier or stopping smoking. The goal or resolution will vary, but the start of a new year can be the start of great change—of achieving the life you dream of.
Want 2020 to be your best year ever? Great, because in a bit I’ll share some ideas to help, but before that, I want you to know this: you can create positive change any month, week, day, or moment. You don’t have to wait until the beginning of the year to start; start now.
That being said, if you want to make a big change now because of the new year, then I’m pumped for you. That’s awesome. To help, I’m going to talk to you about three things:
- Long-term thinking
- Identity
- Responsibility
Because the last thing I want for anyone reading this is to wake up a year from now and say to yourself, “Alright. 2020 wasn’t my year, but 2021 is my year to change.”
Commit to a better you, now, and your future you, will thank you.
Long-Term Thinking
“Long-term thinking is a secret weapon.” – James Clear
Here’s a question straight off our intake form for new members at BSP NOVA:
Take a second and write down your answer(s); take your time, don’t rush. And if a year is too much, then start smaller—maybe with 6 months. Whatever you are comfortable with is fine, but you need a goal/aim of some kind.
Maybe you’d be happy losing 25 pounds.
Maybe you’d be happy consistently going to the gym 3 days a week.
Maybe you’d be happy stopping smoking.
Whatever the goal is, big or small, write it down.
Got it down? Cool. Now, taking action to change is crucial of course, which we’ll chat about soon, but you need to know where you’re heading. We all want to see the results from our hard work—that’s normal. Everyone wants that.
Part of what makes the journey of self-improvement so enticing is seeing improvement. If you start lifting weights with the goal of losing body fat, for example, then even if you’re seeing positive benefit from the weight lifting aspect of things—increased strength, less pain, less stiffness—you’ll be frustrated if the fat loss never comes.
Doing healthy things—eating nutritiously, lifting weights, going on walks—are all great in and of themselves, but they’re made more impactful when they feed into our larger goals.
Identity
Important when starting the process of change, as discussed above, is having a goal; you need to know where you’re going even if you aren’t 100% sure at the moment. This is crucial. Also crucial though, is understanding how your identity influences your behaviors, and how your behaviors influence your identity.
Your identity, or who you are, plays a large role in your daily actions and habits. In general, you engage in activities that are in line with your identity; a gardener gardens; a weightlifter lifts weights; a reader reads.
The opposite is true too—when our actions don’t align with our identity. If you’re trying to start eating healthier, for example, then holding the identity of a junk food connoisseur won’t do you any favors; you view yourself as someone who stuffs Oreos down your mouth, not vegetables.
Maybe this sounds too abstract at the moment though, so let me give you a practical way to use this information. Take a second and re-read your answer to the one-year question above; now, ask yourself this:
“What type of person gets those results?”
Think in terms of who that person is; are they a weight lifter; are they a runner; are they vegetarian? Think in terms of characteristics too. Is it someone who is strong and consistent? Or, someone who is healthy and adaptable.
This idea is simple: if I’m “x” type of person then I do “x” activity. Simple doesn’t mean easy though, because when we try to change any aspect of our lives—exercising for the first time, reading more books, stopping smoking—it will feel fake at first. You’re doing something you don’t usually do. Acting differently feels different.
Eric Greitens wrote:
“Wear the mask of the virtue you want until it’s no longer a mask. One day, it will no longer be you putting on the mask of resilience. It will be you, resilient.”
It’s normal that these changes will feel weird at first—that’s okay. Give it time.
Focus on who you want to be, act how that person acts, and eventually, you’ll become that type of person. Put another way, as James Clear says, cast a vote for the type of person you want to be. Are you casting votes in favor of the “you” you want to be a year from now? Or, are you casting votes for the identity that’s no longer serving you?
You have to ask yourself these hard questions because change isn’t easy; change is tough. If it were easy, then everyone would be highly successful and crushing most goals they set out to accomplish—that’s not the case though. And while not easy, change is possible, and it starts with one thing: acceptance that you’re responsible for your life.
Responsibility
“You are not responsible for everything that happens to you. You are responsible for how you react to everything that happens to you.” -Eric Greitens
Sometimes you get dealt a bad hand; this is out of your control. You can’t change that you were in a car accident growing up, or that you didn’t win the genetic lottery for fat loss. You either accept the things you can’t change, or you don’t.
Accepting responsibility for your life is hard at first, but it’s liberating too. Responsibility is power. By acknowledging you are responsible for how your life is turning out, you can create change; you can do away with excuses.
And we all make excuses at times; some of them are real obstacles, and some are imagined. Either way, something can always get in the way of what you desire, so it does little good wading in a pool of excuses. You can either make excuses and complain, or you can change.
Accept that you are responsible for how your life unfolds, then, ask yourself the one-year question above. Take time to really think it through; what do you want your life to look like in a year? Keep those goals in mind, act the way that person acts. Then, overtime, you’ll become that person and achieve the results you desire.