Stop Starting Over at Day One: How to Become the Person You Want to Be

How to become the person you want to be starts with one shift: focus on who you are becoming, not what you achieve. On this episode of The Price Perspective, Jason talks on his own about the difference between forcing an outcome and actually becoming the person who gets it. He covers why changing paths every time you slip sends you back to square zero, why everything in life is a process, how small daily tasks shape who you are, and where confidence really comes from. If you keep trying to build self discipline and starting again, start here.

Forcing it vs becoming it

Every single day, we are becoming the person we are that day and the person we want to be tomorrow. That is where Jason starts, and he is clear that it is not about attempting or trying. There are two ways to go about it: forcing it, or actually becoming it. Persistence is force, nonstop action over and over again. Patience is waiting and figuring out what is going to happen. Anyone needs a healthy balance of both, and forcing is the persistence side on its own. What holds the forcer back is constantly changing paths, and telling a new story the moment they slip. Pivoting when something is not working is fine. Changing paths every time is not.

Square zero: why starting over at day one kills momentum

When you keep changing what you are working toward, you start back at square zero. Not square one, square zero, with no momentum at all. Sometimes starting over is the right call. But the most important part of doing anything is the momentum: keep it rolling and carry it into the next part of the process. Then there is the classic restart. Alarms, spreadsheets, a day one post: I am ready today. Jason's answer is that you should have been ready yesterday, and you cannot do anything about yesterday. Thinking this is day one all over again loses all your momentum. If you are working out how to stay consistent, skip the new day one and take the next step.

Everything is a process

Everything in life is a process. Step one, step two, step three. You cannot do step three before you do step two. Jason shows how he turns an idea into a process at work. When he has an idea, he sits on it. He draws it out on a board or a piece of paper and puts notes in his phone, and lets it flush out until he knows it is a good one. Then he brings in the team and maps out the steps. The process keeps changing as it grows, but once something works, it is just doing that over and over again. His view: put a process on everything. The daily side of this is the subject of the discipline loop from EP 2.

Daily habits: the small tasks are what you become

We all want things: fitness, a family, to be the smartest. That is the achieving. Jason's question is how you get there, and his answer is who you want to be. You set things in motion and create actions to become that person, through small, repeatable daily tasks. His own morning runs on them: up, gym, shower, dressed, then straight to reading, whether that is a book on marketing, self help, construction or maintenance. This is the core of identity based habits. Be very specific about who you want to become, figure out the daily tasks that person does, then ask yourself one question: what do you do daily?

How to build confidence: evidence, not effort

Confidence comes through evidence, not effort. Everything comes back to one action. Do action after action after action and it becomes the confidence, and confidence is the beginning of all momentum. Once you have a little, you can build off it. Slips will still happen. The difference is what you say after one. Not "I didn't do it", but: that is not me. It just happened today. Tomorrow is going to be me. Then one action, and the confidence strengthens again. And it keeps looping around. We looked at the fear that keeps people playing small in Our Deepest Fear on EP 3.

Your day is your life

Becoming who you want to be is a process each of us has to figure out for ourselves. We are all different, and Jason shares these as the things that have worked for him. Create a process and think very little about the goal and very much about the small daily actions. Your day is your life. Your life is an accumulation of many days, just as your day is an accumulation of many small tasks. Be very conscious of those tasks and how they connect, and be extremely aware of what you want to do with your life. For more of how Jason thinks about building a life, the last episode covered ten things he learned from Ben Mallah.