Define the HABITS You Need To Reach Your Goals - Ep. 137

Mindset Mastery Moment

Truth is, you’re incredibly unlikely to reach any goal you set if you don’t have the habits needed to make it happen. If it’s going to be grueling work the entire time, you’re increasing your chances for failure several times over.

Last Wednesday we talked about how we can lose our willpower and self-discipline when it’s needed in numerous areas at the same time.

Discover Where You’ll Need Will Power

Let’s say you set a goal of “fitting into your old prom dress before your class reunion in 9 months."

If that’s your goal, you’re immediately going to start doing some things that probably aren’t habits for you at this point. Thinks like:

• Eating less calories each day
• Increasing the amount of water you drink
• Decreasing the number of carbs in your diet
• Running or biking several times a week
• Incorporating some resistance training and
• Getting enough sleep.

If you try to do ALL of those things at the exact same time, you’re probably going to fail. Your willpower and self-discipline is going to be so incredibly fatigued that you will probably fail.

But, most of us don’t really sit down and think about those things when we set the goal of “Fit into my old prom dress before the class reunion in 9 months."

Break Down The Goal Into The Needed Habits

Look at any one of your biggest goals, maybe launching a podcast, or starting an online business, or maybe learning to play the guitar. Look at that goal and write down the habits you’d need to have in order to support that goal.

Honestly evaluate whether each one of those items is already a habit of yours.

Make the Habit The Goal First

Once you have the list of habits, decide if any of them will support or help learning additional habits. For example, if reading 15 minutes a day is a habit, that might be a good one to focus on first, because it can help support your habit of writing every day. But don’t do them both at the same time. Make reading a habit then work on making writing a habit.

Spend your willpower energy on one habit at a time until the energy it takes is so small, you can easily start the next habit. Some say it’s 21 days and others say it’s over 60, on average. Some things may take even longer.

As you do this, you’ll find that the goal you had set will start to take care of itself.

The pieces will all fall together and it will seem that you’re barreling towards your bigger goal at a speed you never imagined and it’s seeming like it’s taking no effort at all.

One desired habit until it’s developed, then go on to the next one. This means you may have to project out a bit further when it comes to the ultimate goal, but it’s well worth it when you realize your chances for success have increased dramatically.

Habits Cross-Over and Benefit Future Goals

That’s more good news in this, the more you develop habits to support your goals, the more habits you’ll have for future goals.

There are some habits that will cross over into other areas. In the future you won’t have to develop those ones as they’re already there for you.

This is why it seems successful people can be successful at so many things in life. I mean the really truly successful, not just the ones making a lot of money. Remember, money doesn’t define success.

This is how some people are said to have “the Midas Touch” which means “everything they touch turns to gold.” It’s because they’ve got the core habits already in place.

Call to Action

Look at your biggest goal up ahead.

Write done the habits you’ll need to accomplish the goal

Focus on the one habit which will have the greatest impact on the other habits and the eventual goal.