How Habits Can Help Fulfill Your Greatest Potential

When I think of the word habit, I usually think of bad habits like smoking, nail-biting, or leaving the toilet seat up. More than that, Habits are the small choices you make and the actions you perform each day — good, bad, or indifferent. And the power in those seemingly small choices is colossal.

At my sister’s recommendation, I recently started listening to the book “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones” by James Clear. Clear believes our habits can form us into the person we aspire to be or they can hold us back, keeping us tethered to the status quo. Clear says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

For instance, if you want to be an athlete, are you making daily choices that prove to yourself that you are an athlete? If you want to be a reader, are you reading a little bit each day? Clear makes the point that if each day we make small one percent improvements in our habits, by the end of the year our progress won’t just be visible — it will be drastic.

How do you define yourself?

There are reasons why we define ourselves the way we do and it lies in the choices we make each day. Each day we prove to ourselves who we are by our everyday actions. For instance, if you define yourself as a writer you probably have plenty of successfully written pieces and have received external validation about your writing skills. Do you define yourself as a runner? If so, you probably have a steady running regimen and a pile of race medals hanging in your home.

But how you define yourself can have a negative effect also. For instance, I don’t see myself as a crafty person so I shy away from those kinds of creative tasks. Now I know I could change this if I wanted.

Who do you want to be?

The New Year is a great time for introspection, so I’ll ask the dreaded, difficult to answer question — who do you want to be? For me, I want to be a good mom, a reputable solopreneur, someone who cares about others, and someone who prioritizes physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. After deciding who you want to be, the real work begins.

What habits will you put into place in 2021 to become who you want to be?

Now, this is where the rubber meets the road. It’s also easy to say you aspire to be something but it’s harder to put in the work each day to become the person you want to be. But it’s the small actions like forgoing the snooze button to go to the gym before your workday begins or picking up a book instead of doomscrolling on social media that will make those daily one percent improvements — resulting in a person that’s a whole lot closer to who you want to be in 12 months.

So give yourself permission to start small. What’s one small but mighty habit that you want to take into 2021?

Out of necessity, in 2017 I formed a habit of being an early riser. Now it's part of who I am.