In today’s article, I’m going to share with you one big tip to become successful at mastering change. I’m going to go a little bit deeper, and it all ties into the concept of behaviour modification and building habits.
I recently shared with you that my goal and focus was to share a lot more with my clients in terms of what we need to do to create habits. Because at the end of the day, it is all about habits – as human beings, we’re all just creatures of habit.
Creating a Habit for Mastering Change
In my video about making a habit, I encouraged people that rather than setting new goals for the year, try setting new habits. And this ties into that theme, and I’ll share more information with you on how to develop empowering habits and achieve behaviour change for good.
To Master Change, Build Your Identity First
One big tip for becoming successful at mastering change is to build your identity first. People will often then set themselves goals, such as a performance goal, or a performance objective, which may be along the lines of, “I want to lose a certain amount of weight”. Say… five kilograms. And, if we have been working on that and we’ve got the behaviours in place, that’s fine.
However, if we want to create a new behaviour, first and foremost, we need to create the identity to go with that behaviour. I’ll unpack this a little bit further. In terms of losing those five kilos, we want to become the person who keeps active. You know…
“I keep active, so I burn that energy.”
So, we work on developing that as our identity; “I am an active person.” And that will then also help us get the results down the track. This works particularly well when we’re trying to create a new behaviour. And here’s the reason why:
“Our current behaviours are often a reflection of our current identity.”
Either consciously or unconsciously. Based on how we see ourselves, our current behaviours are often a reflection of our current identity – the identity that we have of ourselves.
If you want to change your behaviour, start by changing your identity first. Don’t set performance goals initially. Start working on your identity. This will then help you to become the person you need to become to get what you want.
How to Build Your Identity for Mastering Change
A really big question I often ask people is:
“Who do you need to become to get what you want?”
or
“Who do you want to be?”
In the example above, it is an active person. And that ties into our identity.
Based on the literature I’ve been working through, I’ll share with you some examples, tips, strategies and tools around developing the right behaviours and forming new habits to help us get what we want.
For example, if we look at people’s goals and they set themselves a goal of, “I want to lose weight,” the identity needed is the identity of becoming the type of person who is active every day. So that’s what we need to work on. And that will then help kick in the behaviour.
Another example might be,
“I want to become strong.”
Well in order to become strong, become the type of person who never misses a workout. You see, if you were never to miss a workout, by default you would start to become stronger and stronger.
Here’s another example:
“I’d like to become a better friend.”
In this example, the identity we want to take on, or the person we want to become to accomplish this would be the type of person who always stays in touch. And so that’s the identity that we work on.
The Second Step for Mastering Change
We must then find the behaviour to match the identity. The actual behaviour that coincides with the identity of becoming a better friend would be the behaviour of calling up a friend once a week to stay in touch. And if we do that… and we do it consistently, that’s how we turn the behaviour into a habit. We’re building better habits.
The idea is to find some small behaviours initially. We want to be able to get some small wins up our sleeve and then we keep going with that. Through consistency is how we develop the habit.
There’s a big tip for you today in terms of developing habits and forming good habits. Particularly when we’re looking at starting a new behaviour to be who you want to be! So always ask the question,
“What’s the identity or the person I need to become that will support that behaviour?”
We work on the identity first. Then we put the behaviours in place that align with that identity. And we look for a couple of small wins initially. By doing this, we then work on mastering change and that becomes who we are as a person.
When that is our default personality… when that is who we are… it helps us to change our destiny.
So… set the habit first in terms of building the right identity. And then the results will come.
I’m going to be sharing a lot more tips and strategies on behaviour modification and how to create empowering
habits, and this is just one part of it. I hope you’ve found a lot of benefit from this.
Take Action to Master Change
Take this on board. Think it through. And just work on one thing at a time – be it one goal or one behaviour that you would like to introduce… that’s going to empower you and help to get you what you want. Then once you determine that, you then build the identity around it.
May you have an on track day!
P.S. If you enjoyed this article and would like to get one on one support to put this strategy of identity-based habit transformation into action, then call us at Synergy Mind Solutions psychology practice in Maroochydore on 0458360666 to book your Mastering Change Consultation.