I’m only 35 pages into reading James Clear’s New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results, and I’m already hooked. He’s introduced the concept of identity and how it applies to our habits. Here’s my simplified explanation of his concept: Tell yourself you are a runner, and you will run harder and better than you would if you just say, “I want to run today.” Use identity to empower habits. 

He writes, “With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.” He contends that “every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

Grandmaster Tony Morris, an 8th-degree Black Belt in traditional Tae Kwon Do and owner of Asheville Sun Soo Martial Arts, embraces this concept. “Water takes the shape of the vessel. People are like water and will take on whatever context and structure you hold for them.”

Tony believes in holding a clear identity for both adults and kids that’s always a form of: highly capable. “Our message is clear. We believe in them,” Tony says. ”We hold space for kids to develop a clear identity around three basic distinctions.” 

These three distinctions include:

Tony says these principles are a magical formula for kids that enables them to be leaders among their peers. He sees kids develop high-functioning social skills and good decision-making. Then friends want to be with them. “You take those ways of being with you everywhere.”

He also sees adults transform. “I used to be astonished by it, but now I’ve witnessed it so much. “When a person is engaged in an environment with great clarity, one where someone believes in them, one that is more organized and efficient, they take on the nature of that environment and become more organized and efficient in their lives. That’s when they start making changes in their lives,” he says. Tony sees adults get clear and improve relationships, change their jobs, and get clear about where they are going.

There’s power in our identity of how we perceive ourselves and power in being part of a community that can uplift us. When we change how we see ourselves (our identity), we will change our trajectory.

As James Clear writes, “The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s something very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.”

 Sandra Bilbray is a nationally published writer and previously worked as the columns editor for SUCCESS magazine, a national newsstand publication. She’s the editor of Park Life, which she co-owns with her husband and publisher, Reed.