James Clear

Productivity is the same way.

You know, like the person who gets one extra task done each day.

Doing one extra thing does not make you an all-star, but again, over a 10 or 20 or 30-year career, that can be a really meaningful difference in output.

So this pattern shows up again and again.

What starts out small, relatively easy to dismiss, compounds or turns into something much more significant over time.

This is a huge part of kind of my philosophy and book, this idea of what I call identity-based habits.

But essentially the concept is, and I think this is the real reason that habits matter.

The surface level reason that habits matter is they help you be more productive, they help you make more money, they help you lose weight and get fit.

And look, habits can do all those things, and that's great.

But I think the deeper reason that they matter is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

And so when you perform these small habits, when you take these little actions, you're casting votes for a certain aspect of your story or a certain element of your identity.

In a sense, every time you perform a habit, that's how you like embody that aspect of your identity.

So, you know, when you make your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of someone who's clean and organized or organized.

If you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone who is a writer.

And this is why it can be valuable, you know, even to like do one push up.

It's like, no, that does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts.

And eventually, as you build up evidence of that story, as you start to cast more votes for that identity, you have like actual proof to believe this.

Right.

This is I think is a little bit different than you'll often hear something like fake it till you make it.

And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it.