Strong Habits, Strong Routine |
Posted: March 7, 2018 |
Think of yourself as a train and your goals are the destination. How do your habits fit in this scenario? They are the fuel that gets your train to its destination. So yeah they’re pretty important.
Take a moment and think about all the aspects of your daily routine, the productive and not-so productive parts of it. What’s going in your favor and what’s standing in your way?
As we’ve discussed earlier in this chapter, your success depends on a solid routine that helps you reach your goals.
When you pick your routine apart, you’ll see that it breaks down into habits that have both a direct and indirect impact on how and if you’ll achieve your goals. Let’s consider how this works.
Scenario
Here’s an example of habits that would both directly and indirectly impact your goal. Imagine that you’re a young athlete trying to make the varsity basketball team:
Direct Impact: You practice everyday after school for three hours practicing all facets of your game to improve.
Indirect Impact: From 9:30 PM to 12:30 AM every school night, you go on a mini TV binge that makes you sluggish every morning. This makes focusing in class way more difficult.
“Practicing increases your chances of getting better and achieving your goal of making the team,” said a spokesperson for a SMART Goal Setting App. “However, your plummeting grades from not paying attention in class would ruin your eligibility to actually play, even if you’re good enough to be in the starting five.”
Make or break
All of your habits impact your success one way or another, even if one habit seems completely unrelated to your goals. There’s always a cause and effect that can be traced back to your habits if you look hard enough.
Think again about your current habits and link them back to your goal. What habits help, and what habits hinder you? You’ll likely discover that the setbacks getting in your way are caused by your daily habits.
A common obstacle people have when trying to reach goals is a lack of time. Here are a couple things to think about if this sounds like you:
Which time-sucking habits can you eliminate to focus on your goals?
Which habits can you work on to increase your chance of success?
Think about the cause and effect. If you always feel too tired, go to bed earlier to feel more refreshed, go for a run every morning, or change your diet to feel more energized.
Never take anything at face value when assessing your goals. There’s always a deeper explanation when analyzing your shortcomings, and you can find clarity when you break everything down.
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