Part 2: The Importance Of Personal Development - Atomic Habits
This blog is the second part of a two part blog series, you can read the first part here.
Have you developed the skill of resilience and relentlessness that you will need to keep going in the face of challenges, opposition, criticism and negativity? Will you crumble when everyone doesn’t support your perspective or ideas? Are you humble enough to say you’re sorry and admit when you are wrong yet stubborn enough to push your ideas forward with conviction when you know it is the right thing to do? Achieving success isn’t easy and we have to develop the mental toughness and determination to push through setback and obstacles, and this is why we need personal development in order to grow and advance in our careers.
How does a successful leader act? What are their habits? Successful people and people who struggle don’t behave the same. They have different habits. Just like fit people and people who are out of shape have different habits. The problem is that most programs immediately go after the habits that need to be changed by trying to modify behavior but if people keep the mindset of an out of shape person the new habits will never take root and stick. So we need to go deeper and deal with the root cause of the issue rather than just with the symptom. The root cause is mindset, how do we see ourselves? What is the identity that we have as it relates to this goal? If for example we want to get out of debt and create financial independence but we see ourselves as consumers versus creators of wealth who can and deserve to create financial abundance, then we will be more inclined to spend money rather than multiply it. This is why going to the core beliefs that we have about who we are and how we show up in the world is so critical. My new favorite book, Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes Remarkable Results, An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear does a phenomenal job of addressing the fundamentals of behavior change in order to achieve our goals. The three fundamentals that he outlines are: 1. Outcomes - focusing on results (e.g. losing weight), 2. Processes - what you do (e.g. eat a specific diet and do 30 minutes of exercise daily) and 3. Identity: What we believe (about ourselves).
How To Develop An Identity That Propels You Toward Your Goals
In this section, I will take you through a step by step coaching process that will help you determine an identity that will serve you as it relates to ONE primary goal that you have a burning desire to achieve and develop a system/process to execute against it so that this identity becomes a core part of who you are, resulting in your attainment of the goal.
Are you ready to do some work to bring one of your most powerful and potentially life changing goals to pass? If it is important enough to you and your purpose is big enough you will block 20 minutes where you can work through this exercise in a focused and committed way. Make sure you answer each question by writing the answers down as it makes it more real. Let’s go!
What do you think is the identity of the person who achieves this goal? Put another way, how do they see themselves as it relates to this goal? (e.g. a person who runs everyday would probably see themselves as a runner versus someone who occasionally runs)
List one critical quality that they have as displayed by a specific daily habit? Example, maybe the quality they see themselves having is “determined” so they find a way to exercise no matter what.
Decide who you want to be as it relates to this habit. i.e. What is your identity? It is helpful to start with, “I am …”
What action will you take that can be broken down into a small daily action?
Commit to taking the action every day for 30 days consecutively.
How will your life be different if you took this action everyday for the next 365 days? (Why is this a must for you? What will you gain or lose if you do or do not take this action)?
Who in your community already practices this habit that you can use as a mentor or accountability partner?
Visualize: write down or read aloud the goal everyday preferably twice per day, once in the morning and once at night. If you can commit to closing your eyes and envisioning yourself taking consistent daily action you will significantly activate your internal drive to follow through.
Conclusion
If you want to get a result you have never had you have to commit to be someone you have never been by doing the things you have never done. Transformation doesn’t happen by gathering more and more information, it happens by application of this information. So just take action.
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