The Ideal Self, 2020
Having just finished Atomic Habits, I’ve decided to give this whole “identity-based habits” thing a change. Previously, I had never really set a concrete plan and written things out on how I wanted to improve; I just checked in every once in a while to see where I was on my mental framework/report card that covered social-emotional-mental-physical-religious aspects (more on that below). Clear’s hypothesis is that goals, on their own, aren’t worth much: they set up a binary yes/no outcome that doesn’t leave much room for happiness (which I don’t fully buy), the execution plan isn’t really built in (though that’s also somewhat the case for identity-based habits), and that goals aren’t really all that motivating long-term, because there isn’t always a clear path after you’ve accomplished a goal (which I do mostly agree with; especially as a runner). Clear recommends using your goals to help inform yourself about who you want to be and using that ideal-self identity guiding your habits (and since we are what we do, habits guide our identity).
So, Step 0 in the process of James Clear’s self-improvement process is to establish the ideal-self identity. Who do I want to be - not what do I want to do, but what kind of person am I trying to become?
FINDING AN IDEAL IDENTITY
I basically used two frameworks/guides for deciding my ideal self, along with my usual long-term goal of “living a generative and connected life”.
CORE VALUES
A while back (August of 2019), a friend sent me this guide for helping me figure out my core values. That turned into this list:
The whole process took maybe around 4 hours or so, but I consider it time well spent. I’ll probably come back to this every year or so.
MY FRAMEWORK OF SEMPR
SEMPR [1] has five parts that I think represent different aspects of growth:
Social - How are you growing in terms of relationships with others? This is a super broad category that includes friends (both in terms of quantity versus quality or relationships, though quality matters more), family, and romantic relationships. Are you spending time with “the right people” in “the right ways”?
Emotional - How are you growing as a person? This is where character development resides - are you growing to be more humble/honest/tolerant/etc.? I’d also say that this is where mental well-being comes into play - are you taking care of yourself?
Mental - How are you growing mentally? For me, this primarily focuses on learning new things, whether it’s in school, or via reading books/articles, or even having decent, thought-provoking conversations. In any case, how are you keeping yourself mentally active?
Physical - This one is pretty obvious. How are you growing what your body is capable of? Some people prioritize gaining muscle mass and upping the amount of weight they can deadlift; I prioritize getting faster on a track/bike and just generally being “in good shape”, which in turn implies things like eating well, exercising often (and doing a variety of things).
Religious - How are you growing in your belief system about God/some other higher powers? I think that even “growing into atheism” is a valid form of growth here, if you’re approaching things with an open mind and becoming more confident about what you believe. Some people use organized religion for this, others don’t.
I’m not sure if SEMPR covers all aspects of growth; there’s also probably a bit of overlap. If anyone has ideas on things that are missing, let me know.
In any case, I used these two activities and frameworks to help me think about the kind of person that I want to become. Without further ado…
THE IDEAL SAAGAR PATEDER, AT THE BEGINNING OF 2020
I’m not 100% sure how to structure this out, but I figure that a bulleted list of things couldn’t hurt. So, the ideal version of myself:
Is the right amount of confident for the situation. For most aspects of my life, I’ll usually err on the side of overconfidence (though I’ve been improving over time). The exceptions seem to be romantic relationships and school projects in EE classes, where I’m clinically under-confident (I wrote a bit about that here).
Is incredibly active in spending time with others. There’s depth and breadth components here - depth, in the sense that I’m really getting in quality time with my closest friends; breadth, in the sense that I want to make sure that I’m actually keeping in touch with the people that I want. Proximity plays a huge role in who I spend time with; the flip side of that is that a power-law-esque distribution takes hold where I spend a supermajority of my time with just a few people and very little with a supermajority of people. Breaking that requires an active effort to do so, and it’s especially important that I do this as graduation approaches for a large percentage of my friends. Six months from now, I won’t be able to walk 10 minutes to drink a beer with a large percentage of my friends.
Is physically active and healthy. Eating healthy is a huge aspect; I want to start eating more vegetables and fruits, which the frozen section at HEB and TJ’s will probably help with. On the workouts side of things, I want to make sure that most days feature some form of workout, whether it’s running (ideally in the morning with TRC), a bike class on the Peloton app, yoga (through Peloton), or a core strength class (…also through Peloton). I also want to incorporate stretching after my cardio workouts to help avoid injury.
Is grateful, since I think that gratitude is core to being a better person. I’ve been gratitude journaling for a few months now, and it’s apparent to me just how effective it is at boosting happiness. This is something that I want to keep up.
Isn’t lazy. I wrote this as I’m sitting in bed and procrastinating going on my morning run (talk about irony), but the ideal me will be better at avoiding laziness. Habit stacking and environmental design will probably be useful here. I’ll probably start off by establishing a morning routine. The 2-minute rule is also going to be relevant here (the smallest, easiest version of a habit should take you under 2 minutes to do).
Is constantly building better character. This one is pretty broad, but I don't know that writing out a laundry list of positive character traits is helpful. This is a you-know-it-when-you-see-it type of thing.
Is constantly learning new things. Historically, this has primarily meant pushing myself to take more classes in school, but I want to be a more avid reader. I'll try to incorporate that in some way into a pre-bed routine.
Is generous, both with time and money. On the time front, this could mean mentoring others, or volunteering. The money part is pretty straightforward - I'll give to ReadWorks (or TCF, or some other charity).
This list isn’t “complete”, in the sense that some things are left off because I don’t think I need to pay much attention to it (or, it just doesn’t matter to me). I’m not worried about achievement, since that has historically been fine and taken care of itself. On the other hand, I don’t value decorum, so the profanity will continue. This list is a work-in-progress, and one that I’m sure I’ll return to periodically.
[1] SEMPR is in that order because I was looking for an acronym and semper means always in Latin.