In my post, Environment Hacking, I wrote about a problem I ran into with BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model:

One of BJ Fogg’s insights is that you already have habits that are completely automatic, so he suggests using those as prompts for a new habit you are trying to build. You repeat to yourself, “After I do [some automatic habit], I will do [some tiny version of a new habit]”. For example, “after I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth”. In this case, the environment is your existing habit.

This works great, but I have some habits that I can’t easily tie to existing one (or at least I haven’t been successful at it yet). For these kinds of habits, I have been thinking of “habit totems” I can put into the environment to prompt me.

In that article, the idea was to place objects in the world that remind you to do things when you see them. I called those objects “Habit Totems”. A Habit Totem works because it’s always present at the place where you want to do the habit, and it prompts you to do it.

Your identity can be a powerful Habit Totem because it is always present, and it changes how you perceive the environment such that it turns everything into a prompt.

I have an identity as a programmer. I program all of the time without prompts, because everything reminds me about programming. I also have an identity as someone that eats plant-based food—no prompt needed at the grocery store or restaurant because it’s just a part of who I am.

But I struggle with my aspirational identities. I want to be a writer, but I still haven’t assumed that identity enough for it to be a driver on its own. I want to make my plant-based identity more specific by becoming “whole-food plant-based”, but I haven’t made a lot of progress.

What I am trying now is to try to internalize that I have already become the identity I aspire to be. I walked through the grocery store last weekend just repeating “I only eat whole plant-based food” and managed to leave with a cart more aligned to that identity. I am writing this blog because “I am a writer” and a writer writes. When I thought about my experience at the grocery store, I was more compelled to write about it.

It’s only been a few days, but it feels very powerful so far.