How to change your habits: start with who you want to become

September. You sign up for the gym downstairs from the office, download the language app you'll need for your next job interview, buy a fresh planner and promise yourself that this time will be different. By mid-October the gym is just a monthly charge, you swipe away the app's notifications without opening them, and the planner stops in week two. You tell yourself you lack willpower. But maybe the problem is something else: you changed your plan, not the way you see yourself. If you're wondering how to change your habits so they actually stick, this is where it starts.

Goals or identity: where do you start?

James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits, one of the most widely read books on habits ever written. Clear says change happens on three levels. The first is outcomes: losing weight, finishing a project, getting the certification. The second is processes: your gym routine, a tidy desk, fifteen minutes of study every evening. The third and deepest is identity: what you believe about yourself.

Almost everyone starts at the first level. They set a goal and work out what to do to reach it, without ever asking who they want to become. Clear suggests flipping it around and starting with identity.

He illustrates it with two people turning down a cigarette. The first says, "No thanks, I'm trying to quit." It sounds reasonable, but that person still sees themselves as a smoker trying to hold out. The second says, "No thanks, I'm not a smoker." It's a tiny difference, and a huge one. For the second person, smoking belongs to their old life, not their current one.

The stories you tell yourself

"I'm not a morning person." "I'm always late." "I'm hopeless with numbers." "I'm not a networking kind of person." You've repeated them so often that they feel like facts. They're not. They're stories.

The catch is that we care a lot about staying consistent with our self-image. If a habit clashes with that image, sooner or later you drop it. You may want more money, Clear writes, but if you see yourself as someone who consumes rather than creates, you'll keep spending instead of earning. You may want better health, but if comfort always comes first for you, you'll end up on the couch instead of at the gym.

In the short run, you give up because you're tired, busy, overwhelmed. But over the long run, Clear argues, the real reason is that your self-image gets in the way.

How to change your habits: every action is a vote

So where does identity come from? From your habits themselves. Clear points out that the word comes from Latin roots meaning, roughly, "repeated beingness." You are what you do over and over.

For years, he didn't think of himself as a writer. His teachers would have called him average at best. When he started out, he published a new article every Monday and Thursday. As the articles piled up, so did his sense of being a writer. He didn't start out as one. He became one.

That leads to the line that sums up the book: every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. One vote on its own changes nothing. But vote after vote, the evidence builds, and the story you tell yourself starts to change. Each time you write a page, you're a writer. Each time you start a workout, you're an athlete. Each time you encourage someone on your team, you're a leader.

And you don't have to be perfect. As in any election, some votes will go the wrong way. You don't need a unanimous vote. You just need a majority.

Two steps to becoming who you want to be

Clear's method is simple. First, decide the type of person you want to be. Second, prove it to yourself with small wins.

If you're not sure where to begin, start with the result you want and work backward. Ask yourself: what type of person could get this result? Who could write a book? Probably someone consistent and reliable. Now your goal isn't writing a book anymore, it's being a consistent, reliable person. Who could get a freelance business off the ground? Someone who reaches out to one new client every week, even when they don't feel like it.

That's exactly what small wins are for: they're evidence. And the evidence is there to convince the hardest person to convince, which is you. It works the same way as self-confidence: it doesn't come before you act, it comes after.

Cast your first vote today

All you need is five minutes and a sheet of paper.

1. Pick a result you've been chasing for a while. The language for that interview, getting in shape, your side project.
2. Write down who the person is who gets there. Finish the sentence: "I'm the type of person who…" For example: "…works out even after a rough day."
3. Find the smallest possible vote. Ten minutes on the app, one set of push-ups, one email to a potential client. It should be so small you can't say no to it.
4. Cast it today. Then tomorrow. Every evening, mark an X on the calendar: it's proof that you're changing.

By mid-October, the gym might still be just a monthly charge. Or you might have become, one vote at a time, someone who goes.