Skip to main content

HOW TO BREAK THE BELIEFS THAT HOLD YOU BACK

 In the beginning, repeating a habit is essential to build up evidence of your desired identity. As you latch on to that new identity, however, those same beliefs can hold you back from the next level of growth.

When working against you, your identity creates a kind of “pride” that encourages you to deny your weak spots and prevents you from truly growing. This is one of the greatest downsides of building habits.

The more sacred an idea is to us—that is, the more deeply it is tied to our identity—the more strongly we will defend it against criticism. You see this in every industry. The schoolteacher who ignores innovative teaching methods and sticks with her tried-and-true lesson plans. The veteran manager who is committed to doing things “his way.” The surgeon who dismisses the ideas of her younger colleagues. The band who produces a mind-blowing first album and then gets stuck in a rut. The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

One solution is to avoid making any single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are. In the words of investor Paul Graham, “keep your identity small.” The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you. If you tie everything up in being the point guard or the partner at the firm or whatever else, then the loss of that facet of your life will wreck you. If you’re a vegan and then develop a health condition that forces you to change your diet, you’ll have an identity crisis on your hands. When you cling too tightly to one identity, you become brittle. Lose that one thing and you lose yourself.

When you spend your whole life defining yourself in one way and that disappears, who are you now?
Military veterans and former entrepreneurs report similar feelings. If your identity is wrapped up in a belief like “I’m a great soldier,” what happens when your period of service ends? For many business owners, their identity is something along the lines of “I’m the CEO” or “I’m the founder.” If you have spent every waking moment working on your business, how will you feel after you sell the company?

The key to mitigating these losses of identity is to redefine yourself such that you get to keep important aspects of your identity even if your particular role changes. 

Ex.
“I’m the CEO/leader” translates to “I’m the type of person who builds and creates/innovate things, give jobs to people and also help other people to grow as an individual” 

When chosen effectively, an identity can be flexible rather than brittle. Like water flowing around an obstacle, your identity works with the changing circumstances rather than against them.

Habits deliver numerous benefits, but the downside is that they can lock us into our previous patterns of thinking and acting—even when the world is shifting around us. Everything is impermanent. Life is constantly changing, so you need to periodically check in to see if your old habits and beliefs are still serving you.

A lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.

Chapter Summary 

  • The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside is that we stop paying attention to little errors.
  • Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
  • Reflection and review is a process that allows you to remain conscious of your performance over time.
  • The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maximizing Your Profits with Scoring

SETTING YOUR MAXIMUM INTRADAY TRADING LOSS First things first: set a max intraday trading loss. There will be days when you just do not have it. Why do you think coaches pull their players when they are not playing well? They are more harmful on the field than off. When you are underperforming, you are hurting your team and your trading business. You need a system to yank yourself over to the bench. A stop loss is your answer. TRADING BASED UPON THE TIME OF DAY A good trader makes note of what time of day it is, when he trades most profitably, and adjusts his trading to fit such times. Your numbers at the end of the month will not reflect your true trading potential. Make the most trades with the most size during the trading periods that statistically are most profitable for you. Money saved during your weaker trading periods is money earned. Consistency The fact is that most trades you make will start working for you right away. But the new traders also hold stocks that are trading ag...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIME

Time is the law of hypnotic  rhythm. The lapse of time required to give permanency to thought habits depends upon the object and the nature of thoughts. Time divides all thought habits into two classes, negative thoughts and positive thoughts. One's individual thoughts are of course constantly changing and being recombined to suit the individual's desires, but thoughts do not change from negative to positive or vice versa except throught voluntary effort on the part of the individual. Time penalizes the individual for all negative thoughts and rewards him for all positive thoughts, according to the nature and purpose of the thoughts. If one's dominating thoughts are negative, time penalizes the individual by building in his mind the habit of negative thinking and then proceeds to solidify this habit into "permanency," of course, refers to the natural life of the individual. In the strict sense of the term, nothing is permanent. Time converts thought habits into wh...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE 4TH LAW Make It Satisfying

 The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change Everyone said handwashing was important, but few people made a habit out of it. The problem wasn’t knowledge. The problem was consistency. We are more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying. This is entirely logical. Feelings of pleasure—even minor ones like washing your hands with soap that smells nice and lathers well—are signals that tell the brain: “This feels good. Do this again, next time.” Pleasure teaches your brain that a behavior is worth remembering and repeating.  Conversely, if an experience is not satisfying, we have little reason to repeat it. In my research, I came across the story of a woman who had a narcissistic relative who drove her nuts. In an attempt to spend less time with this egomaniac, she acted as dull and as boring as possible whenever he was around. Within a few encounters, he started avoiding her because he found her so uninteresting. Stories like these are evidence of the Cardinal Rule...
Post a Comment
Read more