Who I Am

and the habits that make me

Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash

The daily planner I use has a habit tracker on every weekly page. Like the stock photo pictured above, I have yoga and reading on mine along with writing, promoting my writing, walking, and manifesting what I want out of my life. At first, I thought the habit tracker was kind of silly, but since starting it in January, I’ve changed my mind about it — it’s a very useful tool.

I just finished reading James Clear’s bestselling nonfiction book called “Atomic Habits” which includes the essence of the book on the cover: “Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.” I’d heard a lot of good things about this book, and it sounded similar to the approach I started for myself immediately after leaving teaching three years ago, so I wanted to read it and see if Clear had anything to add to what I’m already doing.

For the most part, this book simply solidified for me that I’m on the right track with some things, but it also helped me see some areas in which I can start improving.

I enjoyed the way he explained things in Chapter Two: “How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa.)” He explained that when we want to change our behaviors, there are three layers — the outcome, the process, and the identity. Clear writes that people too often focus on the outcome they want to see but that they should focus on changing their identity first and then the outcomes they want will come when they start behaving like the identity they want for themselves.

This fit perfectly with what I decided to do the very day I stopped teaching. For 30 years, my identity (one of them, at least) was that of a teacher even though I’d always wanted to be a writer. For those 30 years, because I was teaching full time, I saw myself as a teacher first and a writer somewhere much further down the line after coach, play director, sponsor, etc. When I left teaching, though, I knew I’d need to immediately step into the role and identity of a writer if I ever expected to become one.

How to do that, though? After all, my entire days for the bulk of those 30 years were spent doing teaching things — planning, teaching, grading papers, attending school events, etc. I was about to leave all of that behind and have all the hours of the days to myself, so I knew that I’d need to embrace writing and immerse myself in it the way I had the teaching role.

But starting out alone in a field that is wide open to possibilities of what I could be doing with my time and writing was daunting, and I knew that if I didn’t start doing something right away and keep doing that something, then the writing life I’d always dreamed of having might wither and die before it was ever born.

That’s when I came up with the idea to do one thing every single day that involved writing, that propelled my writing and my writing career forward even if only a teeny bit. I thus started doing just that, and I wrote down what I did in a small journal — essentially, I was habit tracking before I even knew that was a thing. I’ve continued to do that process (which is the second layer Clear mentions) every day since that very first day I stopped teaching and started writing. Most days, I do way more than one small thing, but I do at least one thing every single day.

Clear explains that when we focus on changing our identity first, we focus on who we want to become, and then the process and the outcomes follow. I completely agree with him. When I said to myself, “I’m no longer a teacher; I’m a writer,” I quite easily stepped out of the role of teacher and into that of a writer in the span of 24 hours.

What I’ve done with those three years between leaving teaching and now is something I wouldn’t have been able to do if I’d continued to teach and continued to see myself as a teacher first and a writer in my nonexistent free time. I think I could have made that switch in my mind many years ago, but then my teaching would have suffered a lot because to be the writer that I want to be requires most of my time, energy, and talent.

After only 3 years, I feel the identity of writer so much more strongly than I ever felt the identity of teacher even though I was one for 30 years. This is because the roots of my writing identity go back to my childhood when I first decided that I wanted to be a novelist someday. Thankfully, I haven’t let that younger version of me down.

Clear’s book has got me thinking, though, about a few other identities that are in me but that I’m not embracing the way I should and how, if I did, then I’d certainly see results similar to those I’ve accomplished as a writer. What tiny habits could I begin employing each day to arrive at the outcomes I want for those identities?

I see myself as a swimmer, yet I rarely swim because I don’t have easy access to a pool. One of the ways to make your habits attainable is to make them easy, according to Clear. Thus, I struggle with how to become the swimmer I’d like to be.

Another identity or role I embrace is that of traveler. For the most part, I think others see me as one, too, so I must already be doing things that show I’m a traveler, but I could still do more. One habit that I embrace each day is the habit of studying and practicing my Spanish, not only to keep myself from losing all I learned over those 30 years of teaching it, but also because I want to return to Mexico many more times and to Spain a few times, and knowing the language of those countries makes travel within them so much easier. I also work on learning and improving my Italian in the hopes that I’ll get back to Italy for an extended stay and be able to use the language there like I did the last time I went — then, however, my Italian was very weak even though it did help me at times.

I enjoyed reading this book and did learn a few things, but mostly it reinforced what I’m already doing and made me feel proud of myself for stepping into the role of writer even before I had much to show for myself as one. Clear writes about the importance of forming and keeping the habits and not skipping them more than once because losses compound and end up hurting you more than you can even imagine.

I’m so glad that I started doing that one small thing every day and that I’ve stuck with it without missing a day. Even on Christmas, I can do one tiny thing that somehow moves my writing career forward a teeny bit. But I wouldn’t have stuck with it if I hadn’t stepped into the identity of writer first.

That’s why diets and “quick” fixes for things that only focus on outcomes don’t usually work. Once a person loses those 50 pounds or finishes that marathon he wanted to run, those pounds will soon pile back on or he’ll soon become unable to run more than a few miles if he didn’t first embrace the identity of being a fit and healthy person or the identity of a runner.

That part of Clear’s book made so much sense to me, and I suddenly realized why I’m a chubby person. For years, I’ve simply thought of myself as a chubby woman. The question is: Can I embrace the identity of being a thin and fit woman and inwardly see myself as one? If I can, then I will start doing little things each day that a thin and fit woman would do, and with time, I just might be the thin and fit woman on the outside that I identify with on the inside. I haven’t yet embraced that identity, but the more I compare the concept with what I’ve done as a writer, the more I see that it’s within my reach if I choose to step into that role. I already do daily yoga stretches and walk my dogs, and I take my vitamins, but there are surely small habits that I could start doing that would help propel me to outcomes that match up with the identify of being thin and fit.

Is it as easy as this? Ha ha

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

The accumulation of those tiny habits (atomic habits as Clear calls them) over time lead to amazing outcomes. I’ve seen it over and over these past three years. Sometimes when I get down about where I am with my writing career and wish I had more to show for it, I look back on where I started and how far I’ve come in three short years, and then I know that with continued practice of my daily writing habits, I will certainly go even further given more time.

Because I spent this past week at the Nebraska State Fair promoting the Nebraska Writers Guild and my own books in that booth for three long days of 11-hour stretches and a half day, to boot, I did not get more of my next novel written. Some days it’s about the writing, and some days it’s about things surrounding the writing, but every day, it’s something to do with my writing career. I sold many books and talked to a lot of people about writing and reading, so they were days well spent even though I’m very tired right now.

Even though I haven’t made any new progress on my next novel this past week, I do have more of the first draft to share with paying subscribers. If you’re not yet one, become one now to see beyond the paywall.

Until next time.

Tammy Marshall

Keep reading for another segment of my seventh novel, “Last in the Class.”