“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” Proverbs 23:7
Once you identify with a characteristic you will take actions and implement practices to keep in line with that characteristic. We all have ideas in our heart of who we are – both big things and little things. Some examples might be, “I’m a faithful friend”; “I’m an athletic man”; “I’m funny”; “I’m a good cook”; “I have great hair”.
Let’s take one and see how that influences our actions. “I’m a athletic man.” If that’s who you believe you are, then you will take actions that confirm your identity. You’ll do things that an athletic man would do – maybe you’ll workout, lift weights, run, play a sport, eat healthy foods.
It’s great that when you identify with something good, your actions help you to more and more become that.
Each person has a strong desire to be right, and will prove that we right.
But wait! What if you think of yourself as something not so good? You’ll also (maybe subconsciously) work to prove you are right. If you think, “I’m a lazy slob”, you’ll want to show that your ideas are right. Maybe you’ll sit on the couch and watch tv or play video games, eat too much, not do any exercises.
Either way, congratulations! You were right about yourself.
The good news is that you can change who you believe you are! That is amazing and radical! Once you change your idea of who you are, you will want to prove that you are right, and you will start acting in ways in line with who you believe you are.
In his book, “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones”, James Clear says that the most important process of changing our habits is to change who we believe we are.
What kind of person would you like to be? Identify yourself as that kind of person. What would a person like that do? What will you start doing as that kind of a person?
“And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” Colossians 1:13