How To Develop New Habits

What are habits and How they work?

Habit is just a routine or practice performed regularly. Habits are not just about following a routine, it’s a procedure for what you want to achieve. Habits play a very important role in one’s life, they are just like double-edged swords, they can either work with you to success or against you, which can lead you to failure. So understanding them is essential for everyone. If you want habits to work with you, you need to understand them in detail. To build a habit that can lead to success one should be very patient as habits take time to accomplish. As the most powerful outcomes of compounding are always delayed.

For example, if you want to be fit, you need to work out daily. Most of the people leave the routine in between, just because they can’t see even a small change in their bodies even after working out for a few days. But if you continue to work out daily, you’ll see a sudden change in your body. This is where the power of compounding takes place.

Focus on Systems Instead of Goals

Most people think that the best way to achieve what we want in life, like — getting into better shape, building a successful person, getting rich, etc. is to set specific, actionable goals. Most people approach habits just by setting goals and trying to follow them, but most of the time they fail.

What’s the difference between system and goals?

Goals are just the results that you want to achieve and systems are about the processes that lead to those results. For example, if you are a coach, your goal is to win a championship. Your system is the way you recruit players, the way you train them, and even manage your assistant coaches.

So are goals completely useless? Of course not. Goals are good for setting directions, but systems are best for making progress and walk towards the direction you set.

Why you should focus more on systems rather than goals?

Everyone sets a goal they want to achieve. But only a few people end up winning and are called survivors. And the rest are losers as they didn’t achieve what they want to, but it’s not their fault it’s the fault of their system. As you can see both category people set the same goal but only a few achieve them, which clearly states that you should focus on your systems more than goals. You should build a system of continuous small improvement, which is also known as improving 1% daily.

Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. You left chasing the same outcome because you never changed the system behind it. You treated a symptom without addressing the cause.

Whenever you set a goal, you just want to focus on the result you’ll get, instead of focusing on the procedure. Once you achieved that goal, you would be no longer motivated for doing the same thing again. For example:- Many runners work hard for months, but as soon as they cross the finish line, they stop training. The race is no longer there to motivate them.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Changing Our Habits

Consider the picture above, there are three layers of habits or behavior at which change can occur.

The first layer is changing your outcomes. This level is considered with changing your results, like getting rich, earning more money, getting fit, winning goals, etc.

The second layer is changing your process. This level is considered with changing your habits and systems: implementing a new routine at the gym, develop a meditation practice, etc.

The third and deepest layer is changing your identity. This level is considered with changing your beliefs: like your worldview. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases are associated with this level.

All three levels of change are useful in their own way. The problem is the direction of change.

Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on what we want to become.

Why you should follow identity-based habits

The basic difference between outcome-based and identity -based habits is that identity-based habits lead you to focus on what you want to become, rather than just achieving temporarily and not having a good system of habits.

For example, if you want to read a book. Then the outcome-based habit would lead you to set a goal of just reading the particular book, and later you would not be able to completely read the book even if you managed to read it you would still not have a habit or system which could lead you to read even more books.

But in the case of identity-based habits. Your goal would be to become a reader rather than reading a book. Your identity affects and shapes your habits or systems. You would be developing a system of becoming a reader than reading a book. You would have also heard of “What you say you become”. We have to develop our systems in the same way. The more deeply a thought or action is tied to your identity the easier it becomes to change it. The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.

Your identity emerges out of your habits. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity. The real reason why habits matter is not only because they can get you better results, but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.