Around 2022 I left my Postdoc job to work for a weightloss start up (which was eventually aquired by WeightWatchers). In my postdoc work I was eager to study identity development. Now most people say they want exercise to be a habit. They have heard this term and understand what it means.
A habit is just an automatic behavior tied to a specific context or prompt. The behavior is repeated because there is a reward attached to the behavior and because the prompt is stable. But once that prompt is disrupted with something like a new job, an injury, a new baby, or covid, the habit breaks right along with the context.
Habits rely heavily on external cues but identity runs on internal cues. With identity, a behavior becomes integrated into your sense of self. It is a part of who you are.
Effectively, there's a difference between someone who exercises and someone who is an exerciser.
During the Covid pandemic I remember reading a research paper by one of my colleagues. When Covid happened, people who had an exercise habit were more likely to break their routine than people who integrated exercise into their identity.
So with identity, your behavior survives because it's not tied to context, it's tied to who you are. With identity you adapt, you don't stop.
Now, the research I wanted to do during my postdoc was an attempt to learn how to fast track the identity formation process. Unfortunately I did not acquire any grant to do the research, actually conducted by one of my co-authors for several papers, that has effectively mapped out what might expedite identity formation.
There are three different umbrella buckets through which people might make exercise a part of who they are. These include what you do, what you think, and who you’re with. Each one of these buckets has several pathways. Here they are:
What You Do
1. Physical activity itself. This is the obvious one. Every behavioral rep is direct evidence that you're the kind of person who does this. It's not the whole thing but you cannot become an exerciser without exercising.
2. Self-regulation. This is the planning and managing you do around the behavior. Scheduling your workout. Packing your bag the night before. Checking in on how you're doing. It feels like admin work. But every time you manage something, you're telling your own brain that it's important enough to manage. That's you telling yourself this is a priority.
3. Investment. This is what you put toward the behavior, money, time, effort. If you spend resources on a behavior you are saying this is important, this is something I am committed to.
What You Think
4. Perceived ability. Believing you are capable and increasing your capabilities is important. Everytime you feel more confident in your ability to show up and in your own skills, identity builds. Focus on what you are building as you go through the process.
5. Imaginal experiences. This is picturing your future self, the version of you who already has this identity locked in. Imagine you have been exercising consistently for a year. What is that person capable of? Imagining you are the person you want to be keeps the goal clear and can help facilitate the identity formation process.
6. Rules and standards. This is what you've decided counts as "being a physically active person." Don’t make the standards so narrow or high that they are impossible to reach. If your rule for being an exerciser is five days per week for an hour you are setting yourself up to fail. You can lower the bar, especially early on.
7. Alignment with your goals and values. This is connecting the behavior to something bigger than the behavior itself. It might be "I do this because I want the energy to keep up with my kids," or "because taking care of myself is what lets me take care of everyone else." This is an important form of motivation called identified regulation. This is when the behavior you are doing is in service to something you care deeply about.
Who You're With
8. Attachment ties. These are the social bonds you build through the activity itself. It might be a workout partner, a class you show up to, or a group you're part of (check out Strength Club on Connect if you are in WeightWatchers). The more people you're connected to through movement, the more entrenched the identity becomes.
9. Social appraisals. This is feedback from other people. Someone telling you "you're really consistent," or "you're an exerciser now." I think of these people as identity agents, they're the ones reflecting the identity back to you, sometimes before you've fully claimed it yourself. That kind of feedback speeds up everything else on this list.
Try one Path Today
You don't need all nine at once. In fact, most people already have two or three of these running. But now you know what they are, send me a message back and let me know what you are going to focus on this week!
-Justin
If you want to start any behavior and make it not just a habit but a part of your identity try this text messaging coach I developed here: https://justinkompf.com/habittracker