In the summer, I bought a Kindle, but I have only read about 10% of the first book that I ordered. The reason is that I just wasn't getting anything out of it, as my brain isn't building the mental structures to comprehend what I was reading automatically, so the whole process not only took a huge amount of energy and was time-consuming, it was also quite stressful. There was no enjoyment in it, and my available willpower just wasn't enough to make it a habit.
However, last week I bit the bullet and subscribed to Audible, to see if listening to audiobooks would be better. I listen to some podcasts which are people talking together in interviews and the like, but consuming a book audibly feels somehow like cheating. But, if I want the information out of the books, I am going to have to become someone that can get that information, even if it isn't in the ways that I would normally prefer.
Preference.
It is a funny thing, isn't it? Because while I might "prefer" something, it doesn't mean that thing is good for me or I am going about getting it in the best way. Since the stroke I have changed a lot in many ways, so I have to also recognize that to get the same results or improve my results, I have to adjust a lot of my behaviors. The problem is of course that behaviors aren't easy to change, because not only might we have had them for a very long time, we also identify with them, making them part of "who we are" as an individual.
Which brings me to this post.
The second book I have started listening to is, Atomic Habits by James Clear. It is one of those bestseller books that I have heard a lot about and one of my colleagues recently read it on her way back from travels. It is something I have been interested in reading, but like many things, have put it off because I couldn't read it.
I identify as a reader.
Not a listener.
But, I had never really thought about how this affects my habits before, until starting to listen to the book and listening to the three layers of behavioral change - Outcomes, Process, Identity. None of these things are new to me, but I hadn't recognized that the habits that I have successfully held onto (good and bad) are things that I have identified with. For the easiest instance of building a habit that is very clear in this regard is,
I am the kind of person who writes every day.
Prior to 2017 I wasn't the kind of person who wrote much at all, unless I had t. But since mid-2017, not a single day has passed, no matter where I am, what is going on in my life, or how I am feeling, that I haven't written. And, there is even timestamped evidence of it on this very blockchain, if you want to scroll back for seven years. I am not going to do the math now, but it is a streak of about 2700 days in a row.
I dislike identity politics.
But identity is something that is vital for us in life. One of the problems I am seeing in the world is the homogenization of people, but they are still wanting to have their unique identity. This means that they keep making slices in fine degrees to differentiate themselves from others, creating terms that are wholly unnecessary, but make them fee special.
Love doesn't care who you fuck, or what you call yourself after fucking.
But, when it comes to habit forming, especially after the stroke, I have been trying to change using methods that are bound to fail, because I don't identify with the kind of person who is able to get those results. I have been trying to set goals and even improve my processes, but since I don't feel any of it, I never get enough feedback to make a lasting change. I don't feel good or bad when I don't get the result or I fail, and I have no pride when I succeed. Pride comes through identification, and while it might be a sin, it also helps us become and stay the kind of person we believe we are and when we are not behaving like that person, we disappointment in ourselves, or even shame.
Speaking of shame, I am "ashamed" that I haven't recognized this in myself to the point I have made the necessary changes, because while listening (I wrote reading first) to the book, I realized that I have indeed thought about this, but never took it far enough to apply to my own life. In fact, around ten years ago I was giving some guides to clients on these very things in their own development processes. But, I didn't systematize it for them, meaning, they likely failed in making effective changes that lasted too, unless they integrated it into their identity systems.
We all want to get the results we desire.
But, if we aren't doing the right things in order to get there, we have almost no chance to make the change. So, we have to ensure that we are making the right changes in our process to support getting that goal. And this is pretty much where I left the change of habit conversation with myself, without pushing it into the realm of my identity. However, now I recognize that if I am going to get the results I am after, no matter what they are, I am going to have to change it at the identity level, because how I identify is no longer how I am able to behave.
Identifying as something doesn't mean someone is automatically that thing, but it can affect the behaviors that are on the road to that thing. My own identifications that still feel so very much part of me, are unable to get me the results I am after because they do not support the processes and therefore the outcomes I have available to my potential. This means that even if I have the potential to get a particular result, I cannot reach it because I am not taking the right roads. It is like driving a thousand miles around a city, trying to get to an other city a thousand miles away. But even if the other city is only 100 miles away, if not taking the right routes for the journey, you can never get there.
It is the journey, not the destination.
Sure, but that journey has value because it is leading to outcomes that we want on the way, or we appreciate on the way, even if we didn't know we wanted them prior. The journey is a feedback loop itself, but if continually taking the same paths, what point is taking the journey at all?
Habits are taking the same path over and over, but this doesn't mean that there is no journey. Essentially, if we are able to learn the habits that lead us to some successes in replicable ways, we can free up our attention to spend on more valuable activities on the journey that can lead to more of those surprise outcomes, the ones we didn't plan for, as well as obtaining reach goals, as we have become more efficient in reaching the lower branches on the tree of life.
This article is already too long.
That is not true. An article is as long as it needs to be for me to feel like I have got my thoughts out adequately. Sometimes, it isn't even about finishing the article completely, but instead leaving a lot of loose ends for me to think upon and perhaps pick up later. If I was going to write a complete article that covers everything I want to say from start to finish, I would never have time to do anything else but write, until I ran out of things to write from a lack of journey.
I believe that the people who spend too much time consuming content and not enough time creating content in their lives, end up painting themselves into a corner, no longer able to take a journey, no longer able to make a journey. They stagnate mentally, repeating what they consume, which ends up being nothing unique at all.
What does that say about their unique identity?
Is someone listening?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]