Don't try to change yourself
Don't try to change yourself. Selves are complex and inevitably con-flicted. There will always be a part of you at odds with your own best impulses. Instead, try to find ways to design your world so that it nudges you to behave the way you wish you wanted to.
— from Expanding Your Range (Growth/Change/Education/Learning/Habit) · Life Worth Living: a Guide to What Mattesr Most by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ry
In the book
Become the person, and the behavior follows. You can change your own traits by consistently behaving like the kind of person you want to be — acting your way into a new self rather than waiting to feel like it; pretend, if you must, until the pretense becomes who you are. Do not rely on willpower — design your world. The self is conflicted and willpower is weak, so rather than fighting yourself, arrange your surroundings to nudge you toward the behavior you wish you wanted; make the good thing the default and the bad thing inconvenient. Decide before the moment, not in it. Plan in advance for the challenges you know will come, so that you are not making the decision in the heat of temptation — you have already decided how you will behave. […] Leave the comfort zone deliberately. Don't log the same easy flight forever; find exactly where your ability breaks down and train precisely there, with clear goals and honest measurement, aiming not just to reach your potential but to build it, and growing by small increments rather than waiting for one heroic leap. Build habits by design, not willpower. First make sure you truly want the thing; then make the good ones obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying — and the bad ones the opposite; remove friction from what helps and add it to what harms; and design your surroundings to nudge you rather than relying on discipline you won't always have. Become the person you intend to be. Act like that person consistently until the act becomes the self; decide how you'll behave before the hard moment arrives; and use every clean slate — a new year, a new start — as a launch point for the habit you want. — Expanding Your Range (Growth/Change/Education/Learning/Habit)