Open Mike: 'I'm the Kind of Person Who...' (OT)

["Open Mike" is the anything goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It used to appear on Wednesdays.]

Yesterday Stephen Scharf recommended a self-help book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. I read half the book last night (I was up sick) and it's very interesting. Here's an insight from an early chapter:

Outcomes are what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you are, what you take pride in. We mainly concentrate on the outer two: "I want to lose weight (outcome) so I have to stick to this diet (process)." The problem is that we don't change our identity in a useful way.

"True behavior change is identity change," says the book. "You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you'll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don't shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long-term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are" (p. 33). The identity statement in the example above would be, "I'm a healthy eater."

Anyway, it made me look at myself—I do think I have a sort of "schtick" here on the blog whereby I like to portray myself as a bumbler, a shambler, and—re the discussion of yesterday—not a hard worker and not organized. I know how that identity developed. One reason was because I was an alcoholic for years. Alcoholics can try as hard as they want and still screw up repeatedly, much to our shame. The other is that I intermittently suffered from serious depression, and depression can paralyze you and make it hard to keep the dishes done, much less keep up with the more important actions of life. And that's embarrassing—who can't keep the dishes done? People with normal energy can't understand it and are very critical of it. Heck, I was very critical of it, during my non-depressed phases. Adopting the identity of someone who's lazy and disorganized can be a defense mechanism, a handy excuse when trying to cope with the embarrassment of actions we can't help.

But the worst of my depression is long gone now (I went through a psychiatrist-supervised regimen of antidepressant treatment at the beginning of this century), and I'm coming up on 32 years of sobriety. I no longer need the persona of a lazy, disorganized person. It has outlived its original purpose. It's nothing but a negative habit now.

Those identities become habitual—James Clear says any time we say something like, "I'm terrible with names," "I'm no good at small talk," "I'm always late," "I hate computers," "I can't cook," or whatever it is...that those negative statements continually reinforce our self-perception as well as the way other people see us. But do you really need all those negative self-judgments?

The upshot of reading that part of that book is that I've decided to stop "badmouthing" myself as someone who doesn't work hard and isn't organized. Funny, I've always known the benefits of saying "I'm the kind of person who." The first thing I say if I get pulled over by a cop is something like, "I'm the kind of person who obeys the law." And that's true, too—that's the way I think of myself. All "I'm the kind of person who..." statements are statements about identity.

Try it. The next time you hear yourself reaffirming a negative identity, stop yourself, and try to reframe it as a positive "I'm the kind of person who..." statement. You can't lie, of course, but maybe you can give yourself a break and at least make it more aspirational.

I'm the kind of person who works hard at what he cares about. I'm the kind of person who fights to stay organized.

Hey, look at that—it doesn't even hurt all that much.

Mike

P.S. According to the Pinker Rule, an agreement with my late brother Scott, I'm not allowed to recommend Atomic Habits until I finish it. But if you'd like to check it out based on Stephen's recommendation, here's the link.

Book o' the Week

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

Our link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Malcolm Myers: "This is very similar to Simon Sinek's Start With Why."

MikeR: "Finally! I've winced every time you excused yourself by citing a negative personality trait. Best wishes!"

Nick Reith: "A very thought-provoking and brave post Mike. We are all life-long learners they say, and I have just learnt something useful and constructive. Thank you."

Sean: "I’ve read Clear’s book and the books it piggybacked—eg B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits. Atomic Habits is not a bad book, but I think Fogg’s is the one I’d gift of the two. Fogg is an actual expert in habit formation( google Fogg’s B:Map model) For me, Wendy Wood is the authority on habit. After reading Wood's book, Good Habits Bad Habits, I decided to develop a habit of doing the dishes. With my wife’s agreement (after she came to from fainting) I gave myself 60 days to put what I'd learnt, about using environmental cues to shape behaviour, to the test. Eighteen months later, I look at a dirty dish and get this must-wash-dish pull towards the sink. Today, I don't see myself as 'The kind of guy who does the dishes.' I'm interested in how habits are formed and extinguished."

Comments

[c.d.embrey]

I don't care about what other people think of me!

[Stephen Scharf]

Told ya it was a good book! And congrats for taking ACTION on OUTCOMES that achieve your AIMS.

Lots of great wisdom from the gang in the comments yesterday, too.

The commoon theme of "showing up" and "working hard" are bang-on.

Back when I was a younger man studying of all things, classical ballet, one of the reasons I developed some actual skill at this endeavor is I took class 4-6 days/week for...10 years. Funny how that works. ;-)

I might just extend the latter thought a bit, as well. A good way to work hard is to work...effectively, and a good way to understand how to do that is to ask, "What does success look like?"

Cheers.

[Rob Campbell]

I recognize the dangers of the negativity, but see it as a counterbalance to those people who, on being asked how work is going, always replied that it was going very well, even as they closed down their business the very next day. It felt better to admit things could always improve, and yet still be around for years ahead. Does anybody really believe all those smooth-talkin’ guys with their wonderful claims?

I kinda hated that lying stance; perhaps truth should be given a chance instead. Truth may cause doubt, of course, but is it, in the end, any worse than bare-faced fibbing?

Booze was never a problem when I was allowed to drink: my wife and I, over about a twenty-year period, killed off a bottle of whichever brand of wine we liked with lunch, and that led to some wonderful siestas, a fringe benefit of working from home - at least, once we left the UK for Spain. Now, limited to one glass per day, I find that it hits me more powerfully than did the half-bottle of the good old days. I guess the body finds its own regular equilibrium. No, I may have just been lucky, but I certainly don’t, today, crave that triple dose of vino, and if there’s regret, it’s because my lousy cooking (negativity as truth) could use all the helping disguise I could lend it.

[Tom Passin]

I'm glad to read today's post, Mike, because you have been putting yourself down a lot on the blog lately, and that's not called for. It's also not interesting except when it involves an interesting story ("I don't remember faces well so I didn't realize who it was until I had been chatting with HCB for 20 minutes!").

And let's face it, anyone who can get an essay published in the New Yorker is a hard worker, not a shirker!

As for thinking of who you are in aspirational terms, it can be very powerful, and more so if you can express it in a way that would be aspirational for other people too.

[Trevor Small]

Of course, it's important to distinguish between fixed identity traits ("I'm naturally disorganised") and adaptable traits ("but I can work at organising myself and create some order in my life"); otherwise you're just setting yourself up for painful failure.
Incidentally, never doubt that we all value you either way.

[Chris]

Americans worship positivity often to the extent of complete self-delusion. There is something to admire in self-belief it is true, but when a mass of people insist they are artists, or musicians, or entrepeneurs and show no visible signs of being any of these things, my British mind revolts. "Know thyself" is a much better way to assess how you want to live and the things that give you satisfaction. If those things turn out to be decidedly ordinary, nothing wrong with that. Join the vast majority of the world's population. No need to run yourself down, but being realistic about yourself is less likely to be emotionally damaging.

[Yeah but this piece is specifically NOT about mindless unsubstantiated positivity. It's about self-denigrating comments that no longer pertain but might have become habitual. And please, blanket generalizations about "Americans" amount to bigotry! We're people, and just as varied as you are. --Mike]

[Eduardo]

Hi, Mike
I don't see how someone who defines himself as disorganized can keep a blog running for almost 20 years, and making a living out of it no less!
There must be some hard work going on, I guess :)

[Clay Olmstead]

Yes! An honest appraisal of our faults is the beginning of real change. Change starts with seeing our faults not as innate characteristics, but as behaviors that we adopted because they gave us a result we liked. Once we stop labeling ourselves and start comparing those results to our true desires, we can start making positive changes. It's never too late to start. Even though the road has no end, it's never too long, because we're just walking down it, seeing how far we get.