PDF Summary:Badass Habits, by Jen Sincero

If you’re like most of us, you’ve probably tried to change your habits before and failed. In Badass Habits, self-help expert Jen Sincero says the problem is that we’re too focused on what we’re doing rather than who we’re being, and that building better habits starts with changing how you perceive yourself.

We’ll begin this guide by explaining Sincero’s principle that your identity gives rise to your habits. Next, we’ll explore some practical strategies and psychological methods to reinvent yourself and build your ideal life.

Our commentary will compare Sincero’s ideas with those of other influential books on changing your habits and your lifestyle, such as Atomic Habits. We’ll also provide evidence and supporting details from the field of psychology to help explain why Sincero’s principles are effective. Finally, we’ll suggest some actionable ideas to help you start changing your identity, your habits, and your life.

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To protect your new identity, you have to consciously decide how to interact with the world around you. Consider what you’re willing to do to reach your goals, and conversely, what would sabotage your new habits or go against your self-image. Also, think about what kinds of treatment you will and won’t accept from others, and how you’ll respond if someone crosses one of those lines. Finally, remember that you can only control your own actions, and be ready to protect your identity and stick to your new habits when people or events outside of your control tempt you to relapse.

(Shortform note: In Set Boundaries, Find Peace, therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab breaks this process down into three clear steps. First, identify what your boundaries are by asking what specific actions or attitudes risk sabotaging you. Next, clearly explain those boundaries whenever someone violates them. Finally, enforce them: If that person keeps doing what you’ve asked them not to do, restate the boundary that they’ve violated, then take whatever action you’ve decided is appropriate. Tawwab adds that, ideally, such actions should protect your well-being instead of trying to control the other person. For example, you can’t force someone to speak more kindly to you, but you can walk away and refuse to engage.)

Sincero adds that many people struggle with boundaries because they’ve been raised to believe that prioritizing their own needs is selfish. As a result, they do whatever they can to keep other people comfortable and happy, even at great cost to themselves. For such people to set boundaries, they have to overcome that conditioning and work through the discomfort of finally standing up for themselves.

If you struggle with people-pleasing tendencies, the author suggests that you practice asserting yourself in small, low-stakes ways. For example, immediately and firmly turn down pushy salespeople instead of hearing them out, or cut an unwanted conversation short and simply walk away. You’ll probably find that advocating for yourself like this is easy, satisfying, and less likely to cause backlash than you expect.

(Shortform note: Psychotherapist Amy Morin, author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, provides some more ways to help you break out of people-pleasing behavior. Like Sincero, she suggests that you start small: For instance, say no to something unimportant, like a favor you don’t want to do or a meetup you don’t want to attend. Alternatively, give your honest opinion about something harmless, such as a popular movie that you didn’t care for. Another option is to take a stand for something you really believe in—while not as trivial as Morin’s other suggestions, you may find it helpful to have the “courage of your convictions,” as the saying goes.)

Practical Strategies to Change Your Habits

Sincero recognizes that the idea of changing your self-image and habits probably seems overwhelming. To help you stay motivated and focused, she presents a 21 day plan—each day introduces one new practice to reinforce your new identity and behavior. She urges you to take things one day at a time, and by the end of three weeks, you’ll have a new habit firmly entrenched in your life.

(Shortform note: Sincero’s 21 day plan is based on the popular idea that it takes 21 days to form a new habit—an idea that seems to have originated in the 1960s. More recent research has found that the timeframe for habit formation varies widely depending on the person and the activity: anywhere from 18 days to more than 250, with the average at about 66 days. Since there’s little scientific consensus on a system or plan to build habits, the main advice researchers agree on is to repeat the desired behavior as often as possible until it becomes habitual, however long that takes.)

Let’s dive deeper into the unifying themes behind the practices in Sincero’s plan. In this section, we’ll explore four practical strategies you can use to support good habits and work toward becoming your ideal self:

1. Create the right environment for yourself.
2. Preemptively solve problems that might derail you.
3. Track your progress.
4. Reward yourself for your hard work.

Practical Strategy #1: Create Your Ideal Self’s Environment

Sincero suggests designing your environment so that it mirrors the person you want to become. This includes making practical changes like setting up spaces to practice your new habits—an exercise room, an office or a desk that’s just for writing, or whatever is suitable for the life you’re building. You can also hang up pictures that remind you of your goals, shop for the kinds of clothes that the “new you” will wear, or add anything else to your surroundings that helps you stay connected with your ideal self.

(Shortform note: Sincero says you should design an environment that reflects the person you want to become, but in Willpower Doesn’t Work, psychologist Benjamin Hardy takes a slightly different approach: Hardy says the key to changing your behavior is to change your environment in ways that force you to adapt. For example, if you want to reduce your time on social media, you could delete all of the social media apps from your phone; this would force you to use social media only from your computer, which you probably spend far less time on.)

Sincero also urges you to reorganize your emotional, social, and spiritual surroundings in the same way as your physical environment. Surround yourself with people who support and reinforce your new identity, rather than people who make you want to relapse into bad habits. Consume media that uplifts you and motivates you to stick to your goals. Finally, take at least five minutes each day to sit quietly and connect with your inner thoughts through meditation, yoga, prayer, or a similar spiritual practice.

(Shortform note: In addition to Sincero’s guidance, another crucial part of changing your mental and emotional “environment” is to deal with any unfinished business that may still be distracting you and draining your energy. In The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy calls this psychic clutter. He says things like broken promises and unfulfilled commitments keep you stuck in the past, worrying about the things you should have already done, rather than looking to the future and working toward your goals. This is also known as the Zeigarnik effect. However, experts note that you can largely counteract the Zeigarnik effect if you make a clear and specific plan for how you’ll complete those unfinished tasks.)

Practical Strategy #2: Solve Problems Before They Happen

Sincero’s next suggestion is to make good habits as easy as possible and bad habits as inconvenient as possible. For instance, if you’re trying to eat healthier, keep healthy snacks in easy reach and get rid of any unhealthy snacks in your house—force yourself to go all the way to the store for candy or chips.

(Shortform note: In Tiny Habits, social scientist BJ Fogg offers a slightly different model of behavior that explains why this strategy is effective. Unlike Sincero’s trigger-response-reward model, Fogg says our behaviors are determined by a combination of motivation and ability. In short, the less ability we have to do something (which is to say, the harder that thing is to do), the more motivation we need in order to do it. So, assuming your motivation levels stay the same, you can more-or-less control your behaviors by adjusting your ability to carry them out. Like Sincero says, this means making unwanted behaviors more difficult and desired behaviors easier.)

Sincero also urges you to anticipate the ways you’ll sabotage your own efforts and figure out how to avoid those pitfalls. You know your patterns of self-sabotage intimately: the ways you distract yourself from what you know you should do, the ways you rationalize your bad behaviors, and so on. Think carefully about how you get in your own way, and determine how you’ll stay on track in spite of yourself.

(Shortform note: One way to avoid self-sabotage is to use what James Clear (Atomic Habits) calls implementation intention. This is a simple if-then statement that predicts a situation and pre-sets your response. So, returning to the previous example of eating healthier, you might set this intention: “If I’m craving something sweet, then I will eat an apple.” Then, when that self-sabotaging urge to eat junk food comes up, you’ve already got a plan to keep yourself on track.)

Practical Strategy #3: Track Your Progress

Next, Sincero says that you should find ways to measure and record your progress. This makes your progress clearly visible, which provides the immediate gratification that long-term habit change often lacks. Some examples include keeping a tally of how many days you’ve been sober, or using an app to track some relevant metric such as weight. This visible progress quickly begins to reinforce itself—as you build a streak, you become increasingly motivated to maintain it.

(Shortform note: Sincero’s strategy takes advantage of what Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F∗ck) calls the motivation loop. Manson says many people misunderstand how motivation works because they think motivation has to come first and that it leads to action. However, Manson argues that motivation and action are a cycle: Motivation does lead to action, but taking action creates more motivation to keep going. Therefore, by making your progress (the results of your actions) clearly visible, you generate motivation and keep the loop going.)

Practical Strategy #4: Reward Yourself

Sincero adds that tracking your progress is a good way to stay motivated, but sticking to a habit is much easier when you reward yourself for every small success—remember that reward is the final step of habit formation, and the reason why you keep doing that habit.

So, every time you successfully perform your new habit (or avoid an old, bad habit), treat yourself to something you enjoy. Just make sure the reward doesn’t counteract the habit. For example, if your goal is to get to bed sooner, don’t reward yourself by staying up late the following night; instead, maybe treat yourself to a nice breakfast in the morning.

(Shortform note: A principle from neuroscience explains why this strategy is effective. Motivation comes, in large part, from a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Furthermore, your brain releases dopamine when it anticipates getting some reward—the dopamine motivates you to carry out whatever action you expect to lead to that reward. So, by intentionally rewarding yourself for certain behaviors, you train your brain to release dopamine and thereby motivate those behaviors.)

Psychological Strategies to Change Your Habits

We’ve discussed practical strategies for changing your life, but successfully making big changes is just as much of a psychological challenge as it is a practical one. Therefore, we’ll now discuss four strategies you can use to cultivate the mindset and thought patterns you’ll need to become your best self:

1. Give yourself an empowering mantra.
2. Refuse to negotiate or compromise on your new habits.
3. Be compassionate with yourself.
4. Let the changes happen naturally; don’t rush the process.

Psychological Strategy #1: Create a Mantra

One of Sincero’s psychologically-based strategies is to create a mantra: a short, simple statement that you repeat over and over until it becomes part of your typical thought patterns.

To use this strategy effectively, she says you should identify specific ideas or beliefs that are holding you back, then craft a statement to directly counter those self-imposed roadblocks. It must also evoke genuine emotion—a mantra is most effective when it resonates powerfully enough to override your habitual thoughts about yourself. For example, if you’re trying to become less shy and more outgoing, your mantra might be “I’m friendly, I’m funny, and people like me.”

(Shortform note: In The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown points out another way to use a mantra. In addition to repeating it until it becomes a habitual thought, you can use your mantra as a reminder—say it once or twice just before you go into a situation where that mantra will be relevant. To return to the previous example, you might say your confidence-boosting mantra right before you enter a social situation, like a party or a networking event, to remind yourself that you’ve got no reason to be shy.)

Psychological Strategy #2: Adopt a “Non-Negotiable” Attitude

Sincero’s next strategy is to refuse to negotiate or compromise with yourself on your new habits. Instead, recognize when you’re trying to talk yourself out of a good practice or into a bad one, and shut down those thoughts immediately. Remember that you’re changing your identity, and the new you wouldn’t even consider that kind of self-sabotage.

Think about how a recovering alcoholic can’t have even one drink, under any circumstances, since doing so means risking a total relapse. Similarly, there must be no situation that can force you to relapse into bad habits, and no bargain you can make that will convince you to betray your new self-image.

(Shortform note: Making your new habit a non-negotiable commitment is one way to create positive pressure that will help you stay on track. In Willpower, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney say you can amplify that pressure by publicly announcing your new commitment. When your new habit is a promise to others, you’ll be even less inclined to negotiate or compromise on it, because doing so would mean disappointing other people as well as yourself.)

Psychological Strategy #3: Practice Self-Compassion

The previous strategy was about being stern with yourself in order to stay on track. This strategy is the opposite: Be kind, patient, and forgiving with yourself in order to stay happy and motivated. Sincero says this is necessary because there will be times when you want to give up or feel like you’ll never become the person you want to be; those are the times when you must be the most compassionate toward yourself.

Whenever you’re struggling with a new habit, look at your trackers and remember how much progress you’ve made already. If you slip up, don’t berate yourself or give in to hopelessness, because that will only waste your mental energy. Instead, acknowledge the mistake, forgive yourself for making it, and get back on track right away.

(Shortform note: It can be difficult to show yourself compassion, especially when you feel like you’re falling short of your goals or expectations. That’s why psychology professor Kristin Neff (Self-Compassion) suggests you reinforce self-compassion with self-appreciation. This simply means that you regularly and intentionally take note of the things you like about yourself. This will make it easier to maintain your sense of self-compassion when you make a mistake.)

Psychological Strategy #4: Let Change Happen—Don’t Rush It

Finally, Sincero urges you to keep working toward your ideal life while, at the same time, letting go of your anxieties about how long it’s taking for that ideal to become reality. Much like getting upset at yourself when you make a mistake, obsessing over your results and trying to force big changes to happen faster will only waste your energy. That, in turn, will impede your progress rather than accelerate it.

Instead, Sincero says the key is to trust yourself and the process: Keep working on becoming just a little bit better every day, and let the changes happen in their own time.

(Shortform note: This final strategy closely resembles what Greg McKeown (Effortless) calls “effortless progress.” He clarifies Sincero’s principle of letting change happen by explaining that the key to effortless progress is to pace yourself—figure out how much work you can do in a day without exhausting yourself, while still making enough progress to keep yourself motivated. McKeown adds that you’ll have an ideal range for productivity; for instance, perhaps you need to work at least six hours a day to feel motivated, but more than eight or nine hours is too tiring to be sustainable.)