The Kind of Person

If you show up at the gym five days in a row—even if it’s just for two minutes—you are casting votes for your new identity. You’re not worried about getting in shape. You’re focused on becoming the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts. You’re taking the smallest action that confirms the type of person you want to be. ~ Clear, James. Atomic Habits (p. 165). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Casting votes for your new identity? I like that. And I welcome the idea that the smallest action in the right pattern can confirm the kind of person I want to be. There’s a file cabinet in the spare bedroom with years of research on a book I committed twenty-six years ago to write. It’s changed through the years from a children’s book to a three volume tome on the subject. So if I spend two minutes a day picking up a file folder and seeing what’s there it can start the habit that eventually will lead to a manuscript ready to submit to university presses. The kind of person I want to be is the author of a scholarly work. And I’ll get there building a pattern, a habit, of moving in the right direction.