How Do You Get Yourself to Do Hard Things?

James Garrett

“I’m the kind of person who does hard things,” she said proudly. “One more time,” I said. “I’m the kind of person who does hard things!” she roared again, beaming with a glow of confidence and the flushed red cheeks to prove it.

But this was not how it started out when I picked her up from school. “I don’t want to go today, Daddy,” she blurted out as I handed her her gym bag. “I need to go to the bathroom. Can we just go home?” Her inner lawyer was already looking for loopholes for how to get out of it.

For months now, my daughter has wanted to level up her gymnastics game. So she and I came up with a plan of going to our local YMCA together a few times a week to work on specific gymnastics skills so that she can reach her goal of advancing from the intermediate class to the advanced class.

After her objections that day, we did end up getting there and after our session, she felt that rush of joy that always comes with incremental mastery. But, as is often the case, there was a moment in which we almost didn’t make it. It’s these lynchpins in our own lives that are critical to getting us over the finish line.

So what do we say to ourselves when we just don’t feel like doing the hard thing?

Logic of Consequence vs. Logic of Identity

Most of us assume that the best way to motivate ourselves to do a hard thing is to clarify the pros and cons by doing a back-of-the-napkin cost/benefit analysis. “I’m going to be so glad I did this,” “If I don’t go, I know I’m going to regret it later,” or “I’ll feel so much better once I finish my workout.” If we could just get clear enough we’ll get off our duff.

Or so we think.

The late Stanford professor James March’s research suggests there might be a better way. Rather than using a cost/benefit analysis, his research suggests that a more powerful tool is motivating ourselves from a totally different place: our identity.

Chip and Dan Heath, co-authors of Switch, describe it this way:

“The consequences model is familiar to students of economics. It assumes that when we have a decision to make, we weigh the costs and benefits of our options and make the choice that maximizes our satisfaction. It’s a rational, analytical approach…In the identity model of decision making, we essentially ask ourselves three questions when we have a decision to make: Who am I? What kind of situation is this? What would someone like me do in this situation? Notice what’s missing: any calculation of costs and benefits” (Switch, emphasis mine, p. 153).

So in other words, it’s not just incentives that change behavior — it’s also our sense of self. Who we believe we are in the world can show up as a powerful lever if we know how to leverage it. The Heath brothers continue:

“Because identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates someone’s identity is likely doomed to failure…So the question is this: How can you make your change a matter of identity rather than a matter of consequences?” (Switch, p. 154).

To simply the Heath brothers’ prescription, in order to leverage identity to change your behavior, it really boils down to these two questions:

I’m the kind of person who _______. (Think: who do I want to become?)
What would a person like me do in a situation like this? (Think: does my behavior match my new identity?)

In other words, identity isn’t just about who you already are (parent, accountant, concerned citizen), it’s also about who you hope to become (someone who is courageous, someone who loves unconditionally, someone who does hard things). Identity can be defined not only by our roles, but also by the character traits we hope to live up to.

Which brings me back to my daughter. One of the identities I’m working on with her is: “I’m the kind of person who does hard things.” Right now, that statement is just a nascent belief — something we say (usually after she’s just done something hard). But that nascent belief is slowly working its way into an identity (something more core to her sense of self). My hope is that it will root itself deeper and deeper the more it’s practiced and the more evidence that she builds up to convince herself that it’s true.

But so far, with my daughter, we’ve only answered the first question (I’m the kind of person who _______).

The second question is where the behavior change magic is. Once that new identity starts to take root, then naturally you’ll want to be consistent with your new identity. In other words, if I’m the kind of person who does hard things, what would a person like me do in a situation like this?

What would she do, even though she doesn’t feel like going to the YMCA? Answer: the hard thing.

Even when you don’t want to do the hard thing, the cognitive dissonance will often tip you toward realigning your behavior to match your new identity. And of course, the more this happens, the deeper the identity gets and the more consistent the new behavior becomes.

So next time you’re wondering what to say to yourself when you don’t want to do the hard thing, simply answer the two golden questions…