A Vote for the Type of Person You Wish to Become

 

Odilon Redon Vase of poppies

From James Clear of Atomic Habits:

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.

A longer version of this is from Clear in his Tim Ferriss podcast:

one of the core ideas in Atomic Habits, which is your habits are how you embody a particular identity. So the aspects, the behaviors that you perform each day are reinforcing or shaping the story that you have about yourself. I think it’s important to ask yourself: who is the type of person I wish to become? What’s the type of identity I want to be reinforcing? And your habits are not the only things that influence that in life. Every experience is part of who you are, but by virtue of the fact that they get repeated again and again, they have an outsized influence on your story. And so the phrase I like to keep in mind is: every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. 

Here's more, about building habits by starting with thinking of your (desired) identity:

It’s kind of a two-step process. Decide the type of person you want to be, and then you prove it to yourself with small wins. And the more small wins, the more small habits that you perform, the more votes that you cast for that identity, the more you build up evidence of being that kind of person. And eventually you start to take pride in that aspect of your identity. And man, once we start to take pride in a part of our story, it’s much easier to stick with those habits. If you take pride in the size of your biceps, you’ll never skip arm day at the gym. If you take pride in how your hair looks, you have this long haircare routine, all these haircare habits, and you do them every day.

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“I’m the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts,” or “I’m the type of person who shows up on time,” or “I’m the type of person who finishes what they start.” Whatever aspect of your identity that you’re trying to reinforce, that’s kind of the story. You can also phrase it as a question. So for example, rather than saying, “I’m the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts,” you could have this question that’s related to the identity you want to build, and you kind of carry it around with you all day. And in this example, maybe the question is, “What would a healthy person do?” And so you’re just kind of walking around all day asking yourself, “What should I get for lunch? Well, what would a healthy person do?” Or, “Should I take an Uber, or should I walk to the next meeting? Well, what would a healthy person do?” And you just kind of go around your day and try to make decisions that you feel support that identity.

But I think you start with “Who is the type of person I wish to become?” So let’s say I’m the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts. And then the second step is prove it to yourself with small wins. So which small actions, what little habits cast votes for being the kind of person who doesn’t miss workouts? Well, maybe one thing is, rather than doing a 45-minute workout when I only have 10 minutes, I reduce the scope and stick to the schedule and I do a couple sprints, or I do five sets of pushups or whatever it is. And so you find ways to reinforce your desired identity, even if it’s small, especially in the beginning.

Because if you can show up consistently, if you kind of master the art of showing up and performing these small habits, you build up this sense of momentum, you kind of start to reinforce and shape that new identity and the more evidence that you have for it, at some point you kind of cross this invisible threshold where you’re like, “Oh, I guess I am that kind of person.” If you go out and shoot a basketball for five minutes, you don’t think, “Oh, I’m a basketball player.” But if you do it every day for six months or a year or two years, at some point you cross this invisible line. You’re like, “I guess playing basketball is kind of part of who I am.” So I think you’re trying to accumulate actions that support your desired identity

On beginning to build habits:

Make it easy. So rather than doing 15 or 20 minutes or 30 minutes of meditation, which hey, that sounds great because your favorite guru does it. But listen, why not just do 60 seconds? Because if you can master the art of showing up, if you can just do it for a minute and actually stick to that day in and day out, then you’re starting to build the habit and now you have something, you’ve like gained a foothold and you can advance the next level. One of the things I recommend in the book is called the two-minute rule. And it says, just take whatever habit you’re trying to build and you scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do. So read 30 books a year becomes read one page or meditate five days a week for 30 minutes, becomes meditate for 60 seconds and you’re just trying to master the art of showing up. A habit must be established before it can be improved.