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You need to know who you want to be.

James Clear

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.
JAMES CLEAR

Born Death Discipline Man Soft
The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
JAMES CLEAR

Action Change Practice Way Work Yourself
The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.
JAMES CLEAR

Hurt Work Yourself
We imitate the habits of three groups in particular: The close. The many. The powerful.
JAMES CLEAR

Group Habit Imitation Myself Particular Powerful
A genius is not born, but is educated and trained.
JAMES CLEAR

Born Education Genius Training
Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.
JAMES CLEAR

Bad Cost Future Goodness Habit Present
Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the time to be right to make an improvement.
JAMES CLEAR

Change Improvement Live People Right Time Wait
Your culture sets your expectation for what is normal. Surround yourself with people who have the habits you want to have yourself.
JAMES CLEAR

Culture Expectation Habit Normal People Surround Yourself
Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.
JAMES CLEAR

Fight Habit Maintain Pride Yourself
The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.
JAMES CLEAR

Goal Happiness Mentality Problem Yourself
People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them.
JAMES CLEAR

Close Effort Limitation People Rare
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.
JAMES CLEAR

Achievement Focus Habit Identity Result
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
JAMES CLEAR

Call Conscious Direct Fate Life Yourself
It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.
JAMES CLEAR

Belief Change Goal Habit Hard Planning Yourself
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
JAMES CLEAR

Action Person Type Vote Yourself
At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.
JAMES CLEAR

Boredom Point Training
Research has shown that once a person believes in a particular aspect of their identity, they are more likely to act in alignment with that belief.
JAMES CLEAR

Act Belief Believe Identity Person Research
You do it because it’s who you are and it feels good to be you. The more a habit becomes part of your life, the less you need outside encouragement to follow through.
JAMES CLEAR

Encouragement Feeling Habit Need Yourself
A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—and, in many cases, automatically.
JAMES CLEAR

Habit Performance Regular
We all deal with setbacks but in the long run, the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits
JAMES CLEAR

Deal Habit Live Ourselves Quality Run
Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.
JAMES CLEAR

Better Count Feeling Impact Run
Redesign your life so the actions that matter most are also the actions that are easiest to do.
JAMES CLEAR

Action Design Easy Life Yourself
Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.
JAMES CLEAR

Action Failure Goodness Habit Identity Yourself
The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.
JAMES CLEAR

Boredom End Excellence Fall In Love Fascinate Yourself
How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying?
JAMES CLEAR

Attraction Easy Myself Satisfaction Work
Be the designer of your world and not merely the consumer of it.
JAMES CLEAR

Consumption Design World Yourself
When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.
JAMES CLEAR

Change Form Practice Preparation Yourself

You need to know who you want to be.

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You need to know who you want to be.

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