How To Change Your Habits

Did you know that 90% of New Year's resolutions fail? That's a really big percentage, right? In this blog article, you’re going to find out why it is difficult for people to change their habits and what the correct approach is to create the habits that you want to set yourself up for success (just a hint, it's not what you think it is).

Logical level model

The logical level model comes from scientist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. This framework gives you an idea of how you operate on a subconscious level, how your personality is developed, and how your life is created in the external world.

In this model, there are 5 tiers. The foundation is your identity, located at the very bottom. Above that is your beliefs, then your self-talk, and then your environment.

Now, when people try to change a habit such as losing weight, for example, they start to change their habits. And when we look at this model, people are coming from a behavioral standpoint. In other words, they’re trying to change their behavior in order to get what they want. The problem is, that is only a smaller portion of how we express ourselves. What we really need to do is come from the foundation; you need to change your identity first.

Change your identity, change your habits

Your identity is your concept of what you think you are, who you think you are. It is the essence of you; and not just the essence of you; it’s the essence of what you believe you are on a deep level. Simply put, you put work from the inside out instead of from the outside in because when we work from outside in, it is always going to come back at you and battle back and forth.

Have, Do, Be vs. Be, Do, Have

Many people approach their habit changes and their lifestyle changes from a ‘have, do, be” perspective. They want to have something so they think they have to do something new in order to become the person they want to be—but that's actually backward thinking.

You want to change who you are on a deep level so you can begin doing new things. This is a very different way to reframe your thoughts about changing your habits and setting goals because people often forget to factor in their very essence as a person when it comes to trying to achieve new habits.

As you start to change your identity and beliefs, the way you start to see the world, the way you start to think about the world, the way you start to think about yourself, you will eventually change your behaviors.

Habit-forming exercises

Here are a few questions that you might want to write down and do a little soul searching about. If you've got a specific goal that you're thinking about, you can jot those down along with these introspective questions:

• Who do I have to become in order to reach this goal?
• What kind of person is already embodying this goal?
• What kind of person are they from the inside out?
• What do they believe about themselves?
• If you already had this goal attained, how would you see yourself?

Start to question how you would actually reflect on yourself. Now, what are the actual habits that you would have? What would you not do? There may be a list of some things that you're currently doing or some habits that you currently have that you're going to need to let go of—and we want to be aware of those. So as you start to transition your identity, belief, and self-talk, you'll have some tangible things that you can reframe to start to make that transition easier for yourself.