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How To Make Goal Setting A Habit In Your Life

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Goal setting is a strategy and skillset that allows you to make a ‘success plan’ for your life. 

When you dream big dreams, turn those dreams into goals, and then write down those goals, you formulate a plan of attack that, when followed, will help you to actually manifest your specific vision for how you want your life to look. 

Now, that’s all well and good. All of that sounds awesome, right? 

But there’s another aspect to goal setting that a lot of people don’t become aware of until they really start getting into the thick of it. 

Goal setting, as a habit, is really easy to neglect.

When you first get started with goal setting, you’ll tend to be highly motivated. 

You may write down your goals every single day, and go through all of the steps with a sort of ‘religious fervor.’ 

But over time, little things tend to happen. 

Maybe you skip it one day because you’re running late for work. 

Then, maybe you’re tempted to skip it the next day as well because things are just running too far behind—and it seems like something that won’t hurt to put off for one more day. 

Then, before you know it, you’re out of the habit for a week or two. 

Maybe you motivate yourself to catch back up, and you do it for another day or two. 

But then, the bad habits roll back in—and it just starts getting neglected again. 

Here’s the thing…

 You’re not the first person that this has ever happened to. 

In order for goal setting to be as effective as possible in your life, it’s in your best interest to make it a daily habit.

But, there’s a challenge involved in this. 

So today, we’re going to discuss exactly how to do this so that you can utilize goal setting to be maximally effective in your life.

Let’s dig into it.  

What Are Habits? 

habit definition

I like to define habits as automatic programs of behavior that we execute almost without thinking about them on a daily basis

For example:

When I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I do is brush my teeth. 

I’ve been doing this for so many years, and it has become such a staple part of my life, that I perform it almost without even thinking about it.

It has become a habit that’s so grounded in my automatic behavioral patterns, in fact, that not doing it almost completely throws my day off and makes it feel weird.

Habits begin in the brain. 

In fact, there’s some interesting science behind them. 

Science tells us that habits emerge because our brains are constantly looking for ways to save effort.

When we allow our brain to do what it has evolved to do, it will actually try to make any routine activity or effort into a habit. This is important because it helps to optimize our ‘brain power’ and allows the brain to save on precious bandwidth throughout the day. 

There’s a magic that comes into our lives when we develop healthy habits. 

A lot of people underestimate the power that lies in forming productive habits.

Habits And Mental Energy

https://youtu.be/FSZyzhi8C9o

See, when something becomes a habit, you don’t really have to spend as much mental bandwidth to get it done. 

Habits still require physical energy (you actually need to do the thing). But when it comes to mental energy (the energy required to psych you up and motivate you to do the thing)… well, habits really help to give you a break. 

For example, it may take a certain amount of mental energy to prepare yourself for a strenuous workout routine. 

If that workout routine isn’t a regular part of your life, you may have to psych yourself up, get yourself excited, put on some energizing music, or do other things to get yourself mentally ready to do it. 

You have to overcome those feelings within you that would keep you from deciding to do that difficult thing.

This translates to mental energy. And sometimes, it takes a lot of this kind of energy to do things that are good for us.

But it also takes energy just to steer ourselves in the direction of doing the good thing

This is where habits can really work to help make everyday processes far more efficient. 

When something becomes a habit, you get to skip all of that mental investment it takes to prepare yourself for it. 

See, I don’t have to mentally motivate myself to brush my teeth anymore. 

All I have to do is expend the physical energy it takes to do that thing, and then I’m done. 

It’s basically become a maximally efficient process in my life, and therefore takes up very little of that mental/motivational bandwidth. 

So here’s the big question. 

How can we apply the same process to goal setting? 

How can you turn goal-setting into an efficient daily habit that not only feels completely normal, but that also comes naturally and automatically day in and day out? 

This is a great question. 

Let’s talk about it. 

How To Form A New Goal Setting Habit

Octavia Butler quote

The best way to form a new habit is through daily repetition

Now at first, this is actually a very energy and labor-intensive process. 

Every single day, you have to motivate yourself to overcome whatever is holding you back and do the thing that you want to build the habit around. 

So with goal setting, for example, you could accomplish this by waking up and setting aside a specific period of time every day that’s specifically dedicated to goal setting, no matter what. 

The First 7 Days

For the first seven days, it might be difficult to force yourself to observe this ritual on a daily basis. 

However, you’ll also have the added benefit of the excitement surrounding the new habit. 

So the first seven days may be difficult, but they’re not usually nearly as difficult as the next seven days.

As a general rule, I find that habits are best formed in 30 day periods. 

So if you can stick with a habit for about 30 days, the likelihood that you’ll go on to successfully create a daily habit out of it drastically increases. 

The Next 7 Days

So for the first seven days, it might be difficult. 

But during those next seven days is when it’s going to be the most difficult. 

This is probably going to be the time during which you’ll be most likely to want to quit. 

This is why it’s so vitally important to keep it up every single day. 

The most dangerous point of any habit-building process is the first day you neglect the new habit

Once you neglect the habit for even a single day, the odds of you giving up on it moving forward drastically increase. 

Therefore, if you miss a day of goal setting, it’s highly important for you to make sure to get back into the habit the following day. 

This may require even more motivation. 

However, it’s definitely worth it. 

If you can successfully achieve your daily goal-setting process for 30 days in a row, it’ll probably start to feel like such a normal part of your day that you’ll notice yourself including it as a natural part of your daily organization.

It’ll just start to feel more natural. 

At this point, you’ll know that it’s starting to become an actual habit.

30 Days And Beyond

Even though your new goal-setting habit should be getting easier to stick with by this point, this isn’t the time to go easy on it. 

Now you want to dig in and shoot for six months

Then, when you finally accomplish those six months, you’ll want to dig in and shoot for a year. 

Once you do something consistently on a daily basis for an entire year, you’ll find that you’ll be highly likely to continue to stick with it for the long term. 

This is the amount of time it takes to form a truly long-lasting habit in your life. 

Now, keep in mind that everyone’s experience may be a little bit different with this. But this is what I’ve noticed in my life. This tends to be how the process of habit building feels from my perspective, and I’ve had a lot of success with it. 

Getting Started And Turning Your Goal Setting Into A Habit 

John Irving quote

Alright. 

Now you know how it’s done. 

Need a bit of help getting started with goals? Download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.

You can also sign up for my email list to get my free Goal-Setting Essentials Starter Kit.

But, the real nuts and bolts of the everyday process begin with you. 

It begins every single day when you wake up and ask yourself the question:

“Should I write down and/or review my future goals today?”

Learning how to set goals is another topic in itself. 

But having the knowledge to do it will only be maximally useful to you if you commit to the process of doing it on a regular basis (in particular, a daily basis). 

Why is this important? 

Because writing down and reviewing your goals every single day helps you to utilize every single day to the fullest extent possible. 

It helps you to take the energy available to you every single day, and point it at the things you really want in life.

See, a lot of people mistakenly believe that they don’t need to write down their goals in order to point their energy at the things that matter. 

But what I’ve noticed in my life and through coaching others is that when you don’t write it down, you’re often unaware of how much energy is getting wasted on things that you were never aware of before. 

It’s kind of like making a budget—but instead of money, you’re budgeting your time, energy, and ability to focus.

We should all have big dreams. In fact, dreaming big is awesome. And every big dream deserves a chance to become real.

And the best way for you to turn your dreams into goals, and then to turn those goals into reality, is to adopt a daily goal-setting habit

You don’t have to get super complicated with it, either. 

This could mean writing down some daily goals in a journal, reviewing your weekly goals on a weekly goal setting sheet, or even using a full-fledged goal-setting planner to map out your goals for the year and check them off on a daily basis.

But the most important part is that you get started. 

Then, it’s just a matter of adapting. 

Review, revise, go. 

You’ve got this. 

Now it’s time to get started. 

Best wishes, 

Jay O’Donnell

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