Do Not Do THIS
Hi there!
Welcome back to the MoodiNews. Every Thursday, we discuss a variety of matters related to mental health and self-improvement.
I’m so glad you’re here.
Today, we will be continuing our current series on: THERAPEUTIC ONE-LINERS! YAY!
The phrase that we will be reviewing today is: Do not practice what you do not want to become.*
This one-liner specifically targets how to build identity and become the type of person that you want to be.
But before we further explore the meaning behind Do not practice what you do not want to become, please check out the image below:
“You can transform yourself into the person you want to be, but you have to decide early—the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken.”
-Warren Buffet
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…This visual has haunted me many times since I first saw it in the book Atomic Habits, by James Clear.
It shows a decision tree made up of ‘decisive moments’—i.e., forks in the road that represent opportunities, or moments of choice, in life.
As you can see, good decisions will send you higher up the ladder, and bad decisions will do the opposite.
This image illustrates perfectly the reason why we must diligently ‘avoid practicing what we do not want to become.’
It beautifully portrays the idea that even our smallest actions impact our life’s trajectory over time.
In therapy, when I teach my clients the one-liner, Do not practice what you do not want to become, I explain it like this:
Repetition creates routine. Routine creates lifestyle. Lifestyle determines your lived experience.
Therefore, what you do today determines not just what happens to you tomorrow, but THE LIFE YOU WILL HAVE long-term.
As you can deduce from the picture above, our actions ultimately determine our position in life—and that position will then inform and shape our identity.
For example:
If you are someone who never takes care of yourself, you will become a slob.
If you choose not to socialize, you will become a recluse.
If you relentlessly practice a particular skill or art form, you will eventually become a master.
Therefore, the phrase Do not practice what you do not want to become serves as a cautionary reminder to only make decisions that will contribute to a future life and identity that you actually want.
(Notice on the decision tree above just how quickly a few bad choices can send a person from ‘baseline’ to ‘bottom.’
Furthermore, notice, too, how many good choices are then required just to reach baseline again after we’ve dug ourselves into a self-inflicted hole with bad decisions.)
But this one-liner can be a hard pill to swallow.
That’s because—sorry!—once we realize the significance of our daily decisions in determining our overall life satisfaction, we can no longer live in denial:
Every time that we compromise on our values or avoid an important task, we recognize that we are making life harder for our future self.
Every time that we act against our own best interests, we forfeit a notable amount of self-respect.
To conclude, if you do not like where you’re headed or currently at in life, stop practicing what you do not want to become.
If you hate cleaning up after yourself, stop being so messy…
It’s also important to not adopt any new behaviors that will burden your future self while you’re fixing your current situation.
Succeeding at this task is very difficult.
It requires grit and humility—that is, radically accepting that the actions you practiced yesterday are what landed you exactly where you are today.
However, it is possible to disrupt your current, self-destructive lifestyle even now, in order to build an existence and an identity that you can feel good about long-term.
Keep in mind, if you Do not practice what you do not want to become, you’ll be at very low risk of actually becoming someone that scares you—and that’s the tradeoff we make in choosing to do our inner work.
I have yet to hear from anyone who has embraced the one-liner, Do not practice what you do not want to become, and has regretted it.
Most people are pleasantly surprised to find what they’re capable of once they start to live with this intention in mind.
So, apply the one-liner Do not practice what you do not want to become for yourself, and see if you notice any self-improvement!
*I do not know who originally coined the phrase, Do not practice what you do not want to become, but I first heard it from Dr. Jordan Peterson—so I want to give credit where credit is due!