The Power to Change Your Habits: Identity Drives Behavior
The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
Background
This review comes from an episode of The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, hosted by Craig Groeschel (plot twist, right?). Craig Groeschel is an entrepreneur, a pastor, an NYT Best-Selling author, and a leadership Expert. Craig started his entrepreneurial journey when he and his wife started ‘Life.Church’ in a two-car garage in Edmond, Oklahoma. Ten years after starting this church, Craig took advantage of the growing world of technology and launched the first-ever fully digital church experience and the most downloaded mobile Bible app in history, ‘YouVersion’. After launching his fully online church and Bible app, Craig began writing and soon became a New York Times Best-Selling author, most notably known for his book ‘Winning the War in Your Mind’, which I plan on reading and doing a review on this year. In addition to starting a church and writing some books, Craig also became a keynote speaker on leadership principles speaking at leadership conferences and summits and hosting his own leadership podcast, The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast. This episode of the podcast speaks on the importance of changing your self-identity prior to successfully changing your habits, or the way you go about your life.
Review
This is the first podcast review I have done from Craig Groeschel, but it hit home on a lot of similar thoughts I have had to myself lately so I had to add it to the list. As mentioned in the preview, the focus of this podcast was to discuss the importance and role of your self-identity and your thoughts about yourself and who you are in attempts to change certain aspects of your life. Recently, I have read a lot and listened to a lot of podcasts where the speakers talk about the correlation between your self-identity and your daily habits. In fact, in the book ‘The Mental Game of Baseball’, an entire chapter is dedicated to the importance of self-belief, positive self-talk, and your perceived identity. The saying that Craig Groeschel refers to several times throughout this podcast is ‘You do what you do, because of what you think about you’.
The truth is, a lot of the things we do on a daily basis stem from what we think about ourselves – or what we associate ourselves with. A lot of our everyday habits that we want to change are a function of our opinion of ourselves or the identity we have established. Our self-identity is the sum total of our beliefs, values, and personality traits that make us who we are. Our habits are closely linked to our self-identity because they reflect the values and beliefs that we hold about ourselves. For example, if we see ourselves as health-conscious individuals, we are more likely to develop habits such as eating nutritious foods, exercising regularly, etc. These habits are consistent with our self-identity and reinforce the positive image that we have of ourselves. On the other hand, if we see ourselves as lazy or unmotivated individuals, we may develop habits such as procrastinating, sleeping in late, or avoiding difficult tasks. These habits are consistent with our negative self-image and reinforce the belief that we are not capable of achieving our goals.
Another thing that Craig mentions in this podcast is that people with the same exact circumstances can have vastly different self-identities, and these same people will in turn have vastly different habits. The example he mentions in the podcast is that of a person who has been dealt an extremely difficult hand early and often in life. In one case, the individual can have the victim mentality – the thought that nothing has and/or will ever go their way so they don’t even try. In another case, the individual can have the overcomer mentality – the thought that he or she has dealt with so many hardships but has overcome them all and that there is nothing that they or can’t overcome if they try hard enough. Same circumstances – very different self-identities. By understanding our self-identity and the role it plays in shaping our habits we can take steps to develop more positive and productive habits that align with our goals and values.
One common mistake among people that don’t understand the correlation between self-identity and daily habits is that they try to change their habits with the wrong approach. They attack the unwanted symptoms, rather than the roots. If you try to change a behavior without changing your identity, you are pulling up a weed, without getting to the root. Without digging up the root, the weed will always come back. It is like a sickness, you can’t treat the symptoms without addressing what is causing the symptoms. The issue with simply trying to change what you are doing versus working to change why you are doing what you are doing is that you need the motivation to change what you are doing but once that desired habit becomes your identity, it becomes second nature. At some point, the motivation to change said habit is going to be lower than the will it takes to perform the said habit. If you listen to enough personal development or motivational content, you have undoubtedly heard people preach that discipline is greater than motivation – and that is because motivation comes and goes. Discipline, in this sense, is doing what you need to do because that is who you are and that’s what needs to be done. Doing it aligns with your self-identity, therefore there is no second thought or negotiation. For example, if you want to start waking up early – sure you may be excited and motivated for a week, but after a week that motivation withers away and it becomes exponentially easier to stay in bed. That is the problem with motivation. Motivation is an elicited emotion, and it takes energy and effort to elicit emotion. However, if you truly believe that your self-identity is that of a person that gets up before the sun, when the alarm goes off you don’t think twice about it. You get up because that is who you are, and that is what needs to be done. The same concept applies to any other habit. In this podcast, Craig refers to the habits and changes people want to make as the ‘starts’ and ‘stops’. You want to stop eating poorly or you want to start waking up early. You want to stop getting angry, or you want to start being more grateful. When most people go to implement these stops and starts, they tend to focus on changing the task itself, rather than their long-accustomed self-identity that makes them do the things they are doing in the first place. Find your desired starts and stops, trace them back to their root cause, and work on changing the self-identity that leads you to make these unwanted choices. Work on digging up the roots rather than pulling at the weeds.
The main reason I chose to review this podcast was because of one quote specifically, which matched something I have been thinking about recently. This quote was something along the lines of “That’s just who I am”. In this podcast, Craig mentions that a lot of times people default to this statement as reasoning as to why they do the things that they do. In my opinion, people do this because it is easier to write off a bad habit as a personality trait rather than do the work it takes to break the habit. I am also guilty of this at times. While I do agree that certain people and certain personalities are more prone to specific habits, writing these things off as concrete personality traits is just a cop-out. Everyone has the power to change their habits, just not everyone has the will. I will give you a personal example.
When I was in high school, I had a full-ride baseball scholarship to the prestigious Air Force Academy which I turned down mainly because I didn’t want to wake up early, make my bed, follow a strict schedule, cut my Beiber hair, etc. I literally turned down this opportunity because I didn’t think I was disciplined enough to do it. Fast forward a few years – I wake up every day by 4:00 to work out before work, make my bed any time I get the chance, follow an extremely strict schedule and diet, and keep a fairly short haircut year-round. In high school, you couldn’t pay me to read a book or write anything that wasn’t for a grade. Now, I read quite often and even write book reviews. In high school and growing up, my identity was the kid that impressively maintained the messy room and that ate candy and chicken nuggets for every meal. Now, I am known as the maniac friend that is up before the sun every morning and orders two sides of greens at a restaurant. The most important thing, though, is that not only is that my identity to those around me – that is my personal self-identity. When my alarm goes off in the morning, I get up without hesitation because I just know that is who I am. I meal prep my meals for the next day every night without question because I know that is what needs to be done and I am the person that does that. Don’t get me wrong, establishing your wanted identity in public and among your peers is a good way to hold yourself accountable, but when the going gets tough, all that truly matters at the cross-section of a difficult decision is what you think about yourself. The point of saying this isn’t to brag on my acquired discipline through the years, the point is to show that no matter what bad habits you have deemed as ‘personality traits’, those traits can be completely flipped in a short period of time with a little discipline, hard work, and an identity shift.
I know it sounds relatively abstract and it is definitely a lot easier said than done to ‘change your self-identity’, but it truly is the root of all habit change and it has been backed by both science & religion. James Clear, the author of the book Atomic Habits (reviewed here) and habit-building enthusiast said the following – “it’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying belief that led you to your past behavior”. This “Underlying belief” Clear is referring to is your self-identity. Your innate belief about yourself which led you to do what you did. In science, there is a field of study labeled ‘Cybernetics’. Cybernetics theory is the interdisciplinary study of the structure, function, and dynamics of systems that are controlled or regulated by communication and feedback mechanisms whether they are mechanical, biological, social, or computational. This is the science of optimizing information flow, control processes, and feedback systems. It is often studied and practiced in the fields of artificial intelligence and control theory. Essentially, it is the study of why things do what they do. In this podcast, Craig explains that through cybernetics theory, habit change is approached in two ways – a first-order approach and a second-order approach. The first-order approach focuses on changing the behavior itself. This involves modifying your environment to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. According to cybernetics theory, this approach shows instant results, but these results do not last. They simply pull up the weeds and leave the roots. The second-order approach involves focusing on thinking differently, rather than acting differently. This approach involves examining the underlying beliefs and assumptions that drive the behavior and using feedback to challenge those beliefs and assumptions. This approach is often considered much more powerful and effective. This approach digs into the ground and pulls out the roots. In Christianity, people often look to the Apostle Paul when they think of transformative thinking. Before his conversion, Paul persecuted Christians and fiercely opposed the message of Jesus before having a transformative encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, which changed his life. In Romans 12:1-2, Paul says “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” By saying this Paul is emphasizing the importance of true change being driven by first transforming your mind – not your actions. Whether you prefer to lean on science or religion for your beliefs, they both seem to say the same thing. You have to change your mind before you can change your actions.
Learn how to change your self-identity, and work on removing the weeds by pulling out the roots.
