Have you ever set yourself a goal, and then never ended up achieving it?
That’s probably because you’re focusing on the wrong thing. Of course goal-setting is a powerful strategy in all aspects of life, that’s a known fact, within our community at least.
However, many people find themselves getting stuck amongst the ambiguity of an audacious goal, and often end up beating themselves up for not achieving it — when they were in fact unknowingly setting themselves up for failure from the beginning.
Goals are great for planning your progress, but systems (or habits) are better for actually making progress.
Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the greatest difference.
Go ahead right now, write down 3 tangible habits you can implement into your daily routine that will help you make progress towards one of your goals.
For example, let’s say your goal is to ‘Save $10,000’ this year. Your three habits could be:
- Each week, transferring $200 from your pay-check into a High-Interest Savings Account.
- Spending an hour every week-night watching Youtube videos on how to invest your money.
- Listening to financial literacy podcasts instead of music on your daily commute to work.
By implementing positive habits, you are taking the ambiguity out of your goals, and instead making slow, yet tangible progress. Even if you don’t end up achieving your goal, you will have made a hell of a lot more progress towards it than you ever would have by not implementing these habits.
We challenge you to follow through on these habits, even when the going gets tough. You will slip up some days, but don’t let that deter you. Momentum is all that matters, but that’s a whole other article.
You’ve got this.
This concept and diagram has taken inspiration from James Clear’s best-selling book, Atomic Habits. We highly suggest you pick yourself up a copy, if you haven’t already.