Emily Chan
Like everybody else, you’ve probably made a New Year’s resolution at one point, only to break it within a few months, weeks, or even days.
You end up falling back into your previous patterns and are left feeling defeated, telling yourself that you’ll try again next year.
Being successful in changing our behavior is hard because our brains get stuck in fixed patterns after they’ve been repeated so many times.
A TikToker named Shadé (@shadezahrai) is discussing the key to long-lasting behavioral transformations and how to create new habits that actually stick around–and that key is to change your identity.
An identity change doesn’t mean changing your name, moving to another country, and taking up a different profession. Rather, it involves shifting the perspective you have of yourself.
“Identity change simply means seeing yourself, embodying who you want to become, and then aligning your behaviors behind that,” said Shadé.
Your self-image has a huge influence on the actions you take in the future. Many people believe that repetition and consistency are the answers to making behavioral changes, but they’re not the entire solution. Those parts can only be put into practice after you decide to alter your views of yourself.
So, how can you see yourself differently in a way that will result in positive changes? For example, if you have a habit of smoking cigarettes that you’ve been unsuccessfully trying to quit, it may be because you think of yourself as a smoker.
Envision yourself as someone who doesn’t smoke and consider yourself to be a non-smoker. This embodies the concept of “we think; therefore, we are.”
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