Atomic Habits - James Clear

Personal-Productivity  · 

In Three Sentences

  1. Positive, lasting behaviour change is possible
  2. Actionable and deeply practical - as close to a playbook as you can expect
  3. Recommended for anyone serious about making behaviour changes that stick

Chapters

  1. The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits
  2. How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

  3. How to Build Better Habits in 4 Simple Steps

    The 1st Law - Make It Obvious

  4. The Man Who Didn’t Look Right
  5. The Best Way to Start a New Habit
  6. Motivation is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More

  7. The Secret to Self-Control

    The 2nd Law - Make It Attractive

  8. How to Make a Habit Irresistible
  9. The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping Your Habits

  10. How to Find and Fix the Causes of Your Bad Habits

    The 3rd Law - Make It Easy

  11. Walk Slowly, but Never Backward
  12. The Law of Least Effort
  13. How to Stop Procrastinating by Using the Two-Minute Rule

  14. How to Make Good Habits Inevitable and Bad Habits Impossible

    The 4th Law - Make It Satisfying

  15. The Cardinal Rule of Behavior Change
  16. How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day

  17. How an Accountability Partner Can Change Everything

    Advanced Tactics - How to Go from Being Merely Good to Being Truly Great

  18. The Truth About Talent (When Genes Matter and When They Don’t)
  19. The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Work
  20. The Downside of Creating Good Habits Conclusion: The Secret to Results That Last

Raw Notes

Chapter 1

The Team Sky story is relevant - i.e. e aggregation of marginal gains. Not just the obvious ideas of having the best equipment, but implementing a proper hand washing routine, A/B testing the best massage gels, finding the best pillows and taking them on tour. Each one on it’s own would amount to little, but when taken in aggregate they make significant differences.

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. (Location 284)

If you’re looking to change your behaviour and have a significant impact on your life then forget about your goals and focus on your systems instead.

Often one sets ambitious goals to change your life. The New Year’s Resolution.

Goals are finite. Certain finite goals make sense - publishing an article on a certain date to a certain word count might be something that you’ve committed to.

In order to improve for good, you need to solve problems at the systems level. (Location 398)

This idea links to the central theme of The Infinite Game

The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. (Location 414)

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. (Location 420)

Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. (Location 425)

Chapter 2

There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change. (Location 619)

Consider the difference between “No thanks, I’m trying to quit” vs “No thanks, I’m not a smoker”

Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last. You may want more money, but if your identity is someone who consumes rather than creates, then you’ll continue to be pulled toward spending rather than earning. You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training. It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are. (Location 483)

Motivation will take you so far, but the ultimate form of motivation (where it barely becomes motivation at all) is when it is part of who you are. No longer are you a person who wants something, you are a person who is that thing.

True behavior change is identity change. (Location 503)

The research backs the fact that once a person believes an aspect of their identity then they will be much more likely to act in that way. If you think of yourself as an athlete and believe that to be the case then you’re much more likely to exercise than if you don’t have the underlying belief. The negative aspects of this are also true - if you believe that you are bad a maths then you’ll act in alignment to this.

The biggest barrier to positive change at any level—individual, team, society—is identity conflict. (Location 533)

Therefore progress requires some unlearning - recall the idea that moving forward in your career requires you shedding some of the skills that got you this far.

Your identity is literally your “repeated beingness.” (Location 549)

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. (Location 566)

This is why you don’t need radical change, personal BHAGs or New Year’s Resolutions - meaningful change can happen one piece at a time.

Each time you encourage your employees, you are a leader. (Location 575)

It is a simple two-step process: Decide the type of person you want to be. Prove it to yourself with small wins. (Location 583)

The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome. (Location 604)

Identity change is the North Star of habit change. (Location 606)

Habits are the building blocks that you use to build the version of yourself.

Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity. (Location 624)

The real reason habits matter is not because they can get you better results (although they can do that), but because they can change your beliefs about yourself. (Location 625)

This is important since the habits are the bits that prove to yourself that you are that person. Each time you brush your teeth you are proving you are a person who cares about their health.

Chapter 3

“Habits are, simply, reliable solutions to recurring problems in our environment.” (Location 663)

Habits are mental shortcuts learned from experience. (Location 670)

A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic. (Location 784)

There’s a nice thought experiment to do here - ask yourself the question what if everything in your life was habitual. You’d have learnt a whole bunch of mental shortcuts to find reliable solutions and for the most part performing them automatically. What would you be at this point? Probably a mindless automaton.

This is where it’s easy to fall into a trap of thinking that the habits and the building of the habits are the point. But really the whole point of trying to create behaviour change by building better habits is so that you can free yourself up from the day to day to focus your energy on bigger stuff.

If you have bad money habits then you’ll always be short of cash and therefore constrained. If you have bad sleeping habits then you’ll be tired and won’t be able to do much. If you have bad eating and exercising habits then you’ll have less energy.

Habits and the discipline that comes from them free you (assuming you don’t fall into the trap of thinking they are the point - remember this is meant to be fun!)

it’s only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity. (Location 686)

The ultimate purpose of habits is to solve the problems of life with as little energy and effort as possible. (Location 785)

Building a habit breaks down into four steps - cue, craving, response and reward.

Chapter 4 - being aware

Habit loops become automatic. It’s actually a fairly involved task to understand all the habits that you currently have.

Before trying to build in new ones it’s worth taking stock of the habits - good and bad - that you currently have.

Pointing-and-Calling raises your level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level by verbalizing your actions. (Location 927)

The example cited for the “Pointing and Calling” technique was the Japanese railway system. Workers would point and call something along the lines of “the light is green so I’m blowing the whistle to go”, or “the guard has waved his flag so I’ll signal the driver” etc. The idea being that by elevating the awareness you reduce accidents by breaking the automatic nature of some of our actions. Once habits have become automatic then we stop paying attention - therefore in many situations this can be problematic.

There has to be a link here to some of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow

The Habits Scorecard is a simple exercise you can use to become more aware of your behavior. (Location 929)

For the habit scorecard - make a list of all the things that you do (Wake up, brush teeth etc etc), put a “=” for neutral habits, “+” for positive habits and “-“ for negative habits. (What positive and negative means is obviously context dependent on who you’re trying to become)

You’re not trying to change anything at first - simply raising the awareness is the goal.

Chapter 5 - starting new habits

There are various strategies to help develop new habits - the “Implementation Intention” is one. When written down and thought about it will increase the chances of happening.

Broadly speaking, the format for creating an implementation intention is: “When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.” (Location 946)

The power of the implementation intention is that is simplifies things into a clear, unambiguous plan that can be followed with little effort. There is clarity. Confusion of whether you have the right motivation doesn’t need to come into it - just follow the plan.

The plan then becomes “I will do thing at a time in a location”.

Timing then becomes interesting - we have an affinity with starts, therefore the first day of the week, month, year are all good ones. This idea links to the Daniel Pink book, When.

An interesting human behaviour is how we decide what to do next based on what we have just done. Habits form sequences. They stack.

Feels like it’s been put in the book since it’s a nice story - but the Diderot Effect is an example. French philosopher Diderot, was poor, Catherine the Great gave him some money, he bought a silk robe, realised it didn’t match his stuff so one by one upgraded all his stuff. Went broke.

Therefore to build a new habit a good strategy is to add it after an existing one - this is habit stacking. Essentially it’s a refined version of an implementation intention.

Habit stacking - “After I perform current habit, I will new habit”. Being specific and clear is vital.

Personal examples

1st Law is make it obvious - therefore implementation intentions based on times & places are clear and unambiguous.

Chapter 6 - environment & choice architecture

The most powerful of all the senses is vision - of the 11m or so sensors on the body about 10m are dedicated to sight and some estimate about half the brain’s resources deal with vision. Our environment and especially what we can see plays a big part in our habits. The classic example of the electricity meters in the hallway rather than in a cupboard. Once it is obvious and in the awareness then you think about what’s happening.

We have the ability to a greater or lesser extent to control our environment. For example, if you want to drink more water, it’s quite easy to fill water bottles before you go to bed and place them in lots of places in your house.

Places are full of objects, but it’s not just the object that is the cue for a particular habit. It’s the entire context related to the object within the environment.

Stop thinking about your environment as filled with objects. Start thinking about it as filled with relationships. (Location 1199)

Given these relationships can arise organically, we can also train ourselves to associated a particular habit with a particular context. For example, an insomniac could train themselves only to be in the bed when they are sleepy and not use it for an other purpose. The habit of sleeping and the bed become related.

There are lots of competing cues when in your most common environments. When building a new habit it is often easier to build in in the new environment where there are no existing relationships. Leaving your normal environment allows you to break out of some of the behaviour ruts. For example, it’s often easier to go and sit in a cafe to do some reading and have good focus etc.

Avoid mixing the context of habits. If the bedroom is where you sleep, then avoid it also being your work-from-home office. If the couch is where you relax after work and your office then where is the break after work? If the contexts and the habits are mixed the often the easier one will win out, e.g. starting to watch telly while working on the couch.

One space, one use.

Your phone is a huge mixing of cues. You reply to emails, browse social media, watch TV, play games. A large phone could even be a work device. Given it’s good for everything it becomes hard to associate with one task or context.

Separate devices for separate contexts can work. Perhaps even different profiles on the same device to have different fonts/colours/grayscale when in a particular context.

Every habit should have a home. (Location 1235)

Key takeaways - habits are initiated by cues, so make them stand out by shaping the environment. Eventually not just the cue, but the whole context (context becomes cue). Easier in new environments where cues don’t exist.

Chapter 7 - self-control & breaking bad habits

Self control is hard. It takes energy in the face of temptation. And like a muscle in the sense that it gets tired.

Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. (Location 1327)

Instead those folks who appear to be very disciplined with great self control are better at putting in place structure that doesn’t need them to use much will power. Therefore when temptation does arrive it’s easier to use the muscle.

Bad habits are a negative feedback loop. Eat junk, feel sluggish, can’t be bothered to cook healthy, eat more junk, more sluggish, less exercise etc etc. Downward spirals.

Bad habits rarely are erased entirely, even if they are not used for a while. The mental grooves stick.

Therefore going upstream and cutting things off at source is the best strategy. Reduce exposure to the cue that triggers a bad habit. Means less expensive self-control needed generally, therefore easier to use if it does crop up.

Leave your phone in the other room when trying to work. Feeling bad by perfect lives on Insta, then pause your account. Feeling like you need new outdoor gear, stop reading gear reviews. Watching too much TV, unplug it after each use, or put the remote at the back of the kitchen cupboard after use.

Essentially it is the inversion of the 1st Law. Since trying to break an old habit, instead of making it obvious, make it invisible.

Summary so far

Chapter 8 - making habits attractive

The more attractive something is, the more likely it is to become habit forming. Many examples in modern food industry. How much of the “pop can’t stop” is because the crunch is attractive?

“Supernormal stimuli” of modern life as the commercialism of desire has been more understood - shopping, “buy now”, social media, porn etc.

Dopamine plays a key part in many neurological processes - desire, motivation, learning, memory. Habits are a dopamine driven feedback loop.

Dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it. Whenever dopamine rises it increases your motivation to act.

It is the anticipation of a reward—not the fulfillment of it—that gets us to take action. (Location 1438)

The same system that is activated when you receive a reward therefore is also activated when you anticipate it. So much real life experience is in this that it’s a cliche - e.g. the anticipation of the holiday is better than the holiday etc.

Therefore the strategy of temptation bundling - the linking of an action that you want to to do (i.e. attractive) with one that you need to do (i.e. the habit you’re trying to form)

Question - how do businesses actively use temptation bundling? Story in the book about ABC band making Thurs nights the “good telly night”. The implication is that over time folks get into the habit of watching ABC because they associate with being relaxed etc. I don’t fully see the connection between personal habits and this example

Premack’s Principle - more probable behaviours will reinforce less probable ones. e.g. you’re more likely to stretch if means you can eat crisps/watch telly.

The habit stacking + temptation bundling formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [HABIT I NEED]. After [HABIT I NEED], I will [HABIT I WANT]. (Location 1498)

In time the hope is that you condition yourself to look forward to/crave the thing you’re trying to build because you get to do the thing you really want.

Chapter 9 - the influence of those around you

We are social animals. We are pack animals. The folks we have around us play a huge part in developing who we are. “Oh I sound just like my Dad”. We’ve been picking up social norms by osmosis our whole lives.

The folks can be group as:

The culture sets the expectation of normal. Therefore align yourself with the folks who are already doing the things you want to do.

Join a culture where (1) your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) you already have something in common with the group. (Location 1591)

The second part of this - joining a group where you already have something in common - is especially effective. The shared identity that you have with the group solves a big part of the identity problem associated with behaviour change.

There are many interesting social conformity experiments. The one here showed that 75% bowed to the answer of the group even when obviously incorrect.

Usually a smart strategy following the crowd. But the downside is that if you join a group with habits you don’t want or are trending in the wrong direction then it’ll impact you.

When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. When changing your habits means fitting in with the tribe, change is very attractive. (Location 1637)

And since you can broadly choose who your tribe is this is a powerful choice you can make to change your behaviour.

Broadly we seek status - therefore we copy people we envy and admire. And we generally avoid behaviours that lower status. We find behaviours that result in approval, respect, praise attractive.

Link to Alain De Botton Status Anxiety?

Chapter 10 - fixing the cause of bad habits

Cravings are targeted emotions that are linked to deeper underlying motives - the craving to check Insta is not about Insta but something that taps into need for connection, or feeling part of something through posting and getting likes, or reducing uncertainty etc.

The habit loops that exist around the cravings are simply the current solutions you’ve found to satisfy those deeper motives. Notes that they might not be the best solutions to those things - just the ones you have now.

Cravings arise when you’ve successfully addressed those deeper motives. Habits that develop to solve those issues are then accompanied by cravings to do that habit. Generally the easier one will win tho! E.g. if mind is calmed by ten mins of meditation or ten mins of mindless YouTube Shorts scrolling then will go for latter!

For me - scrolling YouTube, Guardian & Twitter, what is that tapping into? Need to reduce uncertainty of what to do next? Feels productive without doing the more difficult thing of spending energy to think?

Hard habits can be made more attractive if the association can be made positive. Sometimes that’s just a mindset shift. Consider the language change from “I have to exercise” to “I get to exercise”. One is imposed, a burden, a forced march by your prison guards - the other is open, free, full of endless possibility.

We can find evidence for whatever mind-set we choose. (Location 1763)

The classic is before a presentation or something else you find hard/scary is to say this feeling is excitement.

What are the re-frames that you need for meditation, stretching etc?

Chapter 11 - make small, steady progress

3rd Law - make it easy

“The best is the enemy of the good” - Voltaire

Good example in the book - photography class split into two groups, the first were told they would be graded on the quality of their pictures and the second on the volume. In the end the quantity group took the better overall pictures. The conclusion being that the group who framed things in terms of quality deliberated over each shot, taking far fewer pictures overall and therefore reducing overall quality since less practice, fewer opportunities for an interesting shot etc.

the difference between being in motion and taking action. (Location 1856)

Motion is all about the feeling of making progress, action is about actually making progress. You have to do the work - this links to the idea about learning being active when reading (“Reading with pen in hand” etc) in How to take smart notes.

“Politicians like to panic. They need activity. It’s their substitute for achievement.” Sir Humphrey Appleby (Yes Minister - The Economy Drive).

It feels attractive to be in motion since you get the feeling of progress without the discomfort of potentially failing or it being hard work.

Planning is a classic motion activity - it feels like making progress towards your goal. But you’d be much better off just starting. Your current habits formed by hundreds/thousands of repetitions - therefore new habits need something similar. So the best way to build them is to get started with the repetition.

So if starting a new habit focus on repetition not perfection. Doesn’t all need to be in place, just get the daily/frequent practice going. Just get the reps in.

Even though it might be a small part of the full behaviour you’re trying to cultivate, even completing the loop starts to encode it into your brain. For example, if you’re trying to journal every day then deliberately stop after two minutes. This will be before it feels like work, before you get scared by the blank page.

Learn best through doing. The habits for through repetition. Habits will stick based on the number of times performed rather than the overall time you’ve been trying it.

Chapter 12 - law of least effort

Generally easier to move east/west rather than north/south because of the variation in weather. Interesting argument about why Europe/Asia developed agriculturally ahead of Americas/Africa.

Energy is scare. We are hard wired to preserve energy and do the thing that requires the least energy. Therefore we gravitate to being lazy and doing the thing of least effort.

Link to Thinking Fast and Slow. This is how the brain actually works.

Given you really want the outcome of a habit (e.g. the feeling after exercise/meditation, thinking clearly after journaling etc) then the more friction in the habit the less likely to do it. Therefore make it easy.

Environment design is something that you can consciously do. Leave water bottles around the house so that there is always one to hand. Go and sit in the shed if the house is noisy.

The products/services that are the ones that remove little bits of friction from your life - link to the Hooked book?

Proactive laziness.

Proactive friction.

Chapter 13 - two minute rule

Can imagine your day made up of lots of decisive moments where a choice is made or an unconscious habit is done. Any one doesn’t make the difference between a good day and a bad day, but following the path generally in the positive direction at each choice will result in a better day.

Researchers estimate that 40 to 50 percent of our actions on any given day are done out of habit. (Location 2090).

The point is to master the habit of showing up. (Location 2140)

Pretty much anything can be reduced to the two minute version of it.

Stop below the point it feels like work. If you wrote your journal for two mins and did an hard stop after the two minutes, but then repeated that for a week you’d have started to build the identity of a journaller.

You’re casting votes for your new identity. You’re proving that’s who you are with the evidence of these small wins since you have a streak of written days.

Again this links to the idea about identity - since habit formation and behaviour change isn’t really about the habit or goal themselves but more about becoming somebody, then each time you do the two minute version you’re proving to yourself you are that identity.

We’re focusing on the system not the goal.

Once the basic two minute version is in place, then you can start to optimise. But you can’t improve something that doesn’t exist.

Chapter 14 - making the good inevitable and the bad impossible

Make the good easy and the bad hard.

Make use of commitment devices - such as public commitment or an accountability partner. Make a date to go for a run with someone.

Be lazy (pro-actively like a mathmo) and make use of one-time actions that keep giving

Finance

Health

Productivity

Chapter 15 - make it satisfying

Why is it easier to build the habit of brushing teeth rather than flossing teeth? For sure flossing is a bit harder, but the immediate positive sensory experience of brushing with toothpaste is a big part of it.

Pleasure is the things that makes your brain realise it’s worth repeating. What we reward we repeat, what we punish we avoid.

The first three laws (obvious, attractive, easy) all about getting started and doing the habit this one time. The fourth law (satisfying) is the one that increases the chances it’ll be repeated. It’s the closing of the habit loop.

Immediate satisfaction is key. We’re not brilliantly equipped to deal with delayed gratification. The unfortunate thing is that habit building for behaviour and identity change is a delayed gratification thing (exercise for health, writing for clarity, investing for future etc).

“Time inconsistency” - we tend to value the present over the future. Generally can serve well - but the favouring of instant gratification presents problems. Especially as anyone trying to sell stuff to you know this.

the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future. (Location 2436)

Until the habit loop becomes part of your identity and while it is still forming, immediate positive feedback is important. Therefore can use this in building the strategies. But make sure that the reward reinforces the identity your building towards (i.e. don’t let the reward for exercise be crisps).

Feeling immediately successful vs an incentive - what are the rewards that make you feel successful however small the feeling?

Chapter 16 - sticking with the good

“The Paper Clip Strategy” - a stockbroker had to make lots of calls, he worked out what was a good number, had two jars, one of paper clips other empty, each time made a call moved a clip to the other jar.

The progress made was clear and obvious and unambiguous.

Habit trackers - similar to above, a simple way to track your progress. Providing the evidence to yourself that your are the person you’re trying to become.

“Don’t break the chain” - Jerry Seinfeld. The idea is that Seinfeld writes jokes every day. It doesn’t matter so much on the quality, so all he has to do is focus on not breaking the chain. That’s the only decision to make. Also it allows you to focus on the process and not on the result. Similar to the photography example in Ch11.

Habit tracking is

Ultimately each tick provides evidence that you’re becoming who you want to become.

“Never Miss Twice”. Perfection is impossible and trying to seek it is de-motivating. You’ll miss a day every once in a while. The simple rule tho is don’t miss twice, since if you do rather than breaking the old streak, you’ve just started a new negative one.

The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit. (Location 2597)

Furthermore, since the goal is not to go to the gym, but to become the type of person who values and is dedicated to their health, exercise etc, then the lost session is far more impacting that still going to the gym on an off day and staying for 15 mins.

There is a downside to tracking tho - when the tracking takes over and becomes the goal in itself.

Goodhart’s Law - When the measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure. (This formation is by Marilyn Strathern)

Therefore - just because you can measure it, it doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing for your goals.

Chapter 17 - accountability partners

Want to break bad habit - then invert the fourth law and make it unsatisfying.

More likely to influence someone the more tangible, concrete, immediate and close the consequence is. Consider generals directing troops in war.

Accountability is important. Consider seatbelts, a change in law by government held folks accountable, which in turn embedded the habit which in turn baked it into the fabric of society such that it is now socially unacceptable to not have your seatbelt on - another accountability measure.

Accountability partners therefore can be very useful. Consider writing up an agreement on some point and then signing it. Since we care what folks think of us we don’t want to fail.

The partner could be the public - e.g. some habit contract made publicly.

Chapter 18 - working hard & aligned > talent

Habits are easier & more satisfying when the align with your natural inclinations and abilities. We are born with different abilities and inclinations.

Your genes don’t determine your destiny, but they do point to areas of opportunity. Those at the top of any field have most likely chosen to invest their efforts where their ambition to succeed and ability align.

Five personality traits

To help find alignment consider the questions

This also helps you by allowing you to choose your environment. Investment bank vs librarian. Anxious & sensitive? Then explore habits that make your environment calm and secure and make a feeling of clarity and safety.

Taking this idea one step further - if there are no current games that favour you then create your own.

Genes don’t take away the need for hard work - rather they clarify where you should direct your efforts. The folks at the top of their games have generally worked very, very hard - so don’t be quick to dismiss folks if they seem better unless you’re prepared to put in the same level of work.

Chapter 19 - staying motivated

“The Goldilocks Rule” - the best way to maintain motivation is to work on stuff that is just difficult enough. Not too hard, not too easy.

The Yerkes-Dodson law - “the optimal level of arousal as the midpoint between boredom and anxiety”

Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. (Location 3071)

One of the greatest threats is getting bored - therefore accept it, fall in love with it even.

Chapter 20

Habits are great in that they provide automation loops. The downside is that it can mean you stop paying attention to little errors/misalignments.

Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery

Reflection and review play a huge part in growth. It helps you spot areas for improvement and to understand what’s working or not. It allows you to bring your conscious mind back to what you’re doing and help improve performance.

Consider an Annual Review. Ask yourself three Qs - What went well this year? What not so well? What did I learn?

Consider an Integrity Report. What are the core values that drive my life and work? How am I living up to those values (i.e. showing integrity) now? How could I set a higher standard in the future?

Hold lightly to your identity. The tighter you hold on to it the harder it becomes to grow. Not the best example, but consider being a vocal/proud/t-shirt wearing vegan - what if you had for some reason to eat meat? The cognitive dissonance would be very painful. It would be better to have your identity to one of ethics, fairness, environmental concern etc - then you could still make the choices you need to inside those values. Or consider being in the military - if your core identity is that of soldier then it will be hard when you leave. Better to identify with discipline, hard work, integrity, standing up for what you believe etc.

Keep your identity small but your values great.