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Lesson 1 of 11
How to Choose a Habit that Sticks
The most important decision you will make is what habit to build.

Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle. It
is much more important to work on the right habit than it is to work really hard.
(Working hard is still important, of course.)

In this lesson, we’re going to discuss how to choose the right habit for you.

When most people think about the habits they want to build, they naturally start by
considering the outcomes they want to achieve. "I want to lose weight." Or, "I want to
stop smoking."

The alternative is to build what I call “identity-based habits” and start by focusing
on who we wish to become, not what we want to achieve. (This is an idea I unpack
more fully in Chapter 2 of Atomic Habits.)

Here's the short version:

Anyone can convince themselves to practice yoga or meditation once or twice, but if
you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it becomes hard to stick with long-
term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you
are.

 The goal is not to get straight A’s, the goal is to become a person who studies
every day.
 The goal is not to finish a painting, the goal is to become an artist.
 The goal is not to win the game or competition, the goal is to become a person
who practices every day.

The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your
identity.

It’s one thing to say “I’m the type of person who wants this.”

It’s something very different to say “I’m the type of person who is this.”

This brings us to an important question: if your identity plays such an important role
in your behavior, where does it come from in the first place?

To a large degree, your identity emerges out of your habits. It’s like a self-
improvement feedback loop. The more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce
the identity associated with that behavior. And the more you reinforce the identity,
the more natural it will feel to repeat the behavior.

If you volunteer at your local homeless shelter, you start to believe you are the type of
person who cares about your community. The more weekends you show up at the
shelter, the more you reinforce that identity, and the easier it becomes to see
community service as part of who you are.
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As I say in Atomic Habits: Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you
wish to become.

Each habit is like a suggestion: “Hey, maybe this is who I am.” No single instance will
transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new
identity. And when your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no
longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you
already believe yourself to be. As Benjamin Franklin quipped, “The things you do
often create the things you believe.”

So, this is the first lesson: think about your desired identity and ask, “Who is the type
of person that could get the outcome I want?”

What would a healthy person do? What would a productive person do? What would X
do? These questions help reveal the desired identity you should be working toward
and the habits that support that identity. This is the way to determine which habit
you should focus on.

Once you have a handle on the type of person you want to be, you can begin taking
small steps to reinforce your desired identity.

Here are some more examples of linking your habits to your desired identity:

 If you want to write a book, you should focus on becoming the type of person
who writes every day.
 If you want to learn a new language, you should focus on becoming the type of
person who studies every day.
 If you want to retire early, you should focus on becoming the type of person who
saves money every month.

The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular
outcome. In the beginning, it is far more important to cast small votes for your
desired identity than to worry about a particular result.

Your habits reshape your identity in a gradual way. It's slow and nearly impossible to
see. You can rarely tell a difference between who you were yesterday and who you are
today. But with each rep, with each vote cast, your internal story begins to shift.

Start by focusing on who you want to become, not what you want to achieve.

That's all for Lesson 1. See you in the next lesson,

James Clear
Author of the million-copy bestseller, Atomic Habits
Creator of the Habit Journal
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Progress Check-In
By the end of this lesson, you should have an idea of the habit that reinforces your
desired identity. Who is the type of person you want to become? What is one habit
that casts a small vote for becoming that type of person?

Helpful bonuses and downloads

 Identity-Based Habits template – Use this template to write down your
desired identity and the habit you're choosing to reinforce that identity.
 Workbook – This 20-page PDF includes an action checklist (including
templates for key strategies) for each lesson of the course, plus lesson summaries
and a key terms dictionary.
 Examples Database – The examples database is a Google Sheet of 140+
examples of how to implement each strategy covered in this course for dozens of
different habits.
References and further reading
 For more on identity-based habits, see Chapter 2 of Atomic Habits
 Acting in alignment with a perceived identity: Christopher J. Bryan et al.,
“Motivating Voter Turnout by Invoking the Self,” Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences 108, no. 31 (2011): 12653–12656.
 Internal pressure to act in alignment with perceived identity: Leon
Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1957).