🔄 Why Habits Are More Important Than Goals: Simple Tips 🎯

Each of us has goals, small or large, that we want to achieve in a certain period of time. Someone dreams of earning their first million by the age of 30, and someone – to lose weight by summer. Habits imperceptibly control our lives and influence our behavior. Good habits help in achieving goals, and bad ones hinder it.

First, forget about inspiration. Habit is more reliable. It will support you, regardless of whether you are inspired or not. Habit is consistency in practice.

What's wrong with setting goals

When we decide to change something in our lives, we set a new goal for ourselves. But this approach also has its downsides.

Goals have a deadline

That's why after achieving a certain goal, many people return to where they started. A person runs a marathon and then forgets about training. Someone loses excess weight and celebrates this victory with a cake.

Goals depend on factors that we sometimes cannot control.

That's why after achieving a certain goal, many people return to where they started. A person runs a marathon and then forgets about training. Someone loses excess weight and celebrates this victory with a cake.

Goals depend on willpower and self-discipline

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit: Why We Live and Work the Way We Do, writes, “Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle that, like the muscles in our arms and legs, gets tired from working hard, leaving us with less energy for subsequent tasks.”

Setting goals demotivates us

Research shows that the human brain can confuse setting a goal with achieving it. We relax and begin to believe that the goal has already been achieved and there is nothing more to strive for. This is especially evident when we tell other people about it.

What are the benefits of habits?

Habit is the intersection of knowledge, skill and desire.

Stephen Covey

author of the book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”When we do something out of habit, it means that we perform the action automatically, without thinking. So the goal is achieved gradually, imperceptibly and easily. This systematic approach has its advantages.

Habits trump our goals

Someone sets a goal to write a novel. He decides to write 200 words a day. It will take him 250 days to achieve his goal. A fairly easy task. But sometimes he manages to write 1,000 or even more words at a time. Gradually, this will become a habit. As a result, the book will be finished much earlier.

Habits come easy to us

It takes 30 days to form a new habit. This is the amount of time it takes us to get used to doing a certain action every day.

Habits shape our lives

Our entire life consists of habits that we hardly notice. According to Charles Duhigg's research, we perform about 40% of our daily actions out of habit. They may be unnoticeable, but they shape our personality.

Our life, though it has a definite form, is still largely made up of habits—practical, emotional, intellectual—habits that lead us irresistibly to our destiny, whatever that destiny may be.

William James

American psychologist, philosopherIf a habit is ingrained in a person’s character, then he will carry it through his entire life.

Habits change lifestyle

Some habits can dramatically change our normal behavior. Duhigg calls them “keystone habits.” For example, daily exercise can motivate a person to eat healthier and quit drinking and smoking.

How does the systems approach work?

Many successful people note that by focusing not on setting goals, but on forming habits, we improve our lives.

Warren Buffett, the American billionaire, reads every day, improving his skills and knowledge. Stephen King writes 1,000 words a day. Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge takes notes after each training session, identifying and analyzing weak points that need to be improved. Such habits lead to amazing results and change our brain.

If we want to achieve a goal, we should try to devote our time not to setting it, but to forming useful habits.