How to Create Habits That Actually Last

There’s a universal law.

The law of cause and effect.

The law states:

“For every effect, there’s a cause and for every cause, there’s an effect.”

Stated differently,

“If you want different results, you need to change the cause.”

How many times have you wanted to change your life and immediately start changing your actions?

Want to lose weight? Eat less, move more.

Want to feel confident? Work on your posture. Practice looking people in the eyes.

Want to make more money? Look for a higher-paying job or start taking more action in your business.

But as you start working on these changes, something starts to happen.

You might:

• Try waking up early, but snooze your alarm 4 out of 5 days.

• Start going to the gym for a week, then fall off.

• Try to do more outreach, but quickly stop.

You set out on adopting new habits, only to fall back into old patterns.

Sound familiar?

You know what you need to do to achieve your goals, but you can’t seem to make the new habits stick.

In this newsletter, we’re going to explain why — and it’s not about willpower.

Right Intention, Wrong Cause

Most self-help advice boils down to this:

Most personal development advice boils down to this:

“Your mind has to be stronger than your feelings.”

“Discipline will get you where motivation can’t”

“Just do it, even if you don’t feel like it.”

“Take massive action and do more.”

While these hold great truth and can be helpful, they miss out on a really important key:

Action is not the cause of the results you want.

You can have all the right habits and actions, but action is an effect itself.

It’s the byproduct of something else.

(I speak more about action being an effect here.)

What you need to be focusing on is the cause of your actions and habits.

Your identity.

The issue isn’t that you aren’t disciplined.

You’re actually very disciplined.

Why do you have the habits you do now?

Why do you fall into the same routines that you do?

Because you do the same things over and over again proves that you’re a disciplined person.

The issue is that the goals, actions and habits you want to be disciplined in aren’t aligned with your identity.

So you can be very disciplined with the new habits, but still fall off.

Why?

Because you can’t “out-discipline” your identity.

If you don’t believe or see yourself as the kind of person who goes to the gym, eats clean, runs a business or goes to bed on time, then you will always struggle to make the new habits stick.

And sure, let me add a caveat:

You can use discipline to make your habits stick

You can use willpower.

You can use tons of effort.

You absolutely can.

But…

Do you really want to use so much effort, or do you want something a little bit more… long-term and long-lasting?

Not something that feels like a punishment or leads to burnout.

But something that makes you feel excited and energised to make change?

If you do, please stick around.

Your actions and habits are an effect of your identity.

You will always act in alignment with who you believe and see yourself to be.

Your actions will always express your beliefs:

“I’m so bad with names” → Forgets people’s names or doesn’t put effort into pronouncing them correctly.

“I’m not a morning person” → Hit snooze 7 times for your 6 am alarm.

“I can’t stay consistent” → Doesn’t stay consistent with anything.

You aren’t struggling to make your habits stick because you are taking the wrong action.

It’s because you’ve been focusing on the wrong cause to bring about the changes you want.

If you want to get different results, you need to take the actions of the person who has what you want.

The Switch

My first exposure to this idea, and what changed my life, was James Clear’s book Atomic Habits.

And it was particularly this line,

“True behaviour change is identity change.”

The key to achieving long-lasting habits is forming a new identity.

The identity is so crucial because it’s at the core of everything we do: how we see ourselves, how we interact with the world, the actions we take, how others perceive us and the results we get.

So if you want new results, you need to create an identity that aligns with what you want.

Through having this identity in your mind, you’ll always identify the habits of this person.

And by following through on these habits from the perspective of the identity, getting the results and ultimately the life you want, will be that much easier.

Identity → Habits → Results → Life

But habits and identity work in a bidirectional relationship.

Because who you are becomes what you do, and what you do becomes who you are.

Let me explain.

95% of “who you are” comes from your subconscious mind.

This is an accumulation of all your beliefs, thoughts, memories, actions, feelings, perceptions and behaviours that are recorded and stored in your subconscious mind.

This includes your habits and identity.

Your habits are repeated actions and behaviours that become subconscious and ultimately part of your identity.

If there are things you do because “you’ve always done it this way”, that’s evidence of how your habits are linked to your identity.

You cannot separate yourself from what you do and who you believe you are, because at the subconscious level, they are one.

This is why identity-based habits are so powerful.

Not only does your identity influence your habits, but your habits can influence your identity.

You’re a smoker because you’ve repeatedly done the action of smoking.

The repeated act of smoking THEN made you identify as a smoker because you did the action over and over again until it became a part of your identity.

Then, when it becomes an identity, the action will always follow without you having to think about it.

This is why many smokers struggle to give up smoking, because it’s their identity.

They try to change the habit without changing the identity.

Only once they identify as a non-smoker can they truly stop the habit of smoking.

True behaviour change is identity change.

And this is how you can begin to make those long-lasting changes you want to make:

Not by just changing your habits or behaviours.

But by changing your identity.

Creating Identity-Based Habits

Here’s how to start shifting your identity and creating life-lasting habits:

1. Define Your Future Identity

Ask yourself:

Who is the kind of person who already has what I want?

This isn’t “what do I want?”

It’s “Who do I need to be?”

Examples:

• Instead of “I want to get fit,” say “I want to become an athlete.”

• Instead of “I want to be rich,” say “I want to become someone who creates wealth.”

• Instead of “I want to be confident,” say “I want to become someone who speaks with conviction.”

Name the identity.

2. Identify the Actions and Behaviours

Brainstorm the actions, behaviours and habits of this identity.

Focus on 3 - 5 actions that are strongly associated with this identity.

3. Stack Small Wins

Don’t go for massive action.

Go for minimum viable evidence.

You don’t need to run a marathon to become a runner. You just need to run. Today.

You don’t need to build a million-dollar business to become an entrepreneur. You just need to ship something. Today.

Every time you take action, use it as confirmation.

“This is who I am now.”

Cast a vote. Then another. And another.

4. Act From The Identity

Remember how this works as a bi-directional relationship; you want to use the identity.

Before you do something, take a moment to ask yourself, “What would this identity do?” Or “how would this identity do this?”

The more you start to think this way, the more you cause the subconscious mind to change and align your habits and identity as one.

Now you are this new identity, and you have habits that will stick because you are simply being who you are.

True behaviour change is identity change.

By creating a new identity for yourself, you can achieve lifelong habits.

If you're struggling to change your habits, try creating a new identity for yourself and start acting like that identity.

With time and repetition, these actions will become habits.

Habits that stick for life.

The identity is the cause, and the habits are the effects.

Law of cause and effect.

Thanks for reading.

I hope you enjoyed it.

p.s.

If you’re ready to end distractions and 3x your focus and get more done in less time, grab your copy of the distraction elimination checklist here.

I'll see you in the next one.

— Shana