Happy New Year! I hope you’re feeling back into the swing of things after the festive break. Did you write your Personal Mission Statement, or just catch up on T.V? (Both very good ways to spend the days!)
Now of course for many this time of year is all about habits and goals; about setting intentions for the year ahead. And as someone who writes and talks about this stuff for a living you may assume that I find it all very easy to implement in my own life.
You would be wrong.
Like most people who work in the self-development space, I’m here because I need it. For too many years I prioritised the wrong stuff (and fyi still do sometimes), I routinely struggle with habits, and, although I set goals every year, I don’t always achieve them.
So today I’m going to explain why all of this “failure” actually works really well for me. And then I’ll share the single most helpful tool that I’ve learnt when it comes to creating a new habit. The two are – surprisingly perhaps? – connected.
When we talk about goals, the language and attitude surrounding them is predominantly outcome-orientated.
“Smash your goals!”
“Don’t stop till you reach the top!”
Etc.
This language is something that a) I’ve been guilty of perpetuating and b) that I increasingly think is quite unhelpful.
Now you may be thinking: Isn’t the whole point of setting goals to achieve them?!
Yes, but also no.
Your goals are really just the cherry on top of a process that involves drilling down to discover what’s really important to you – what you value and who you want to be.
Goals without self-knowledge are empty, meaningless and maybe even unhelpful. If you’re setting goals without knowing why they’re important to you, then it’s all too easy to accidentally move yourself further away from what you want in life.
Tunnel vision, outcome-orientated goals don’t integrate the bigger picture of our overall lives. And, when we ‘fail’ to achieve our outcome-orientated goals, we feel demotivated, or worse.
But, when I fail to achieve my goals, for the most part, I feel good.
Why?
Because I focus on the process. I lean into why I’ve made the choices that I have and what they mean to me. I ask myself whether I feel that I’m acting in line with what’s important to me. Whether I still FEEL that I’m moving through my days with purpose and with my values intact.
I’m okay with failing, because, that’s just being human.
But moreover, failing to reach my goals doesn’t feel like failure, failing to stay on track with what’s important to me – to my priorities and values – that feels not only like a huge failure, but also like an act of disservice towards myself.
So if you’re setting goals this January – which btw I strongly recommend you do as they serve as an excellent motivator and compass – get really clear on your why. And remember that not achieving them is more than fine. Sometimes - always! – life gets in the way of our best laid plans. If you have a goal to run a marathon and you injure yourself, the best way you can support that “goal” is by letting it go in favour of one that concentrates on compassion and recovery. Flexibility and understanding, are, as always, our guiding principles in life.
Okay, onto habits!
There are two that I’ve gotten much better at sticking to in the past year or so. Both are fairly simple.
The first is flossing.
You probably don’t need a full explanation here, but basically I couldn’t floss during pregnancy as my gums bled too much (this is common) and then I struggled to pick it back up afterwards. I was so tired with a newborn and it never felt like I had that extra two minutes in my evening routine. Also, I hate doing it. I always have. (I also hate brushing my teeth: I’m effectively a grumpy toddler when it comes to dental care.)
Every morning and night I’d think to myself, you should really floss. And then I’d tell myself that I was too tired and that I’d do it the next day instead. Ad infinitum.
Feel familiar to you? It could be a different but similar health-based habit - drinking enough water, exercising or meditating. We all have at least one thing that we know we know we should be doing more of, but find ourselves hitting a huge mental block with every time we try.
I overcame this block with a very simple thought - which FYI, I learnt from James Clear in his book Atomic Habits which I recommend to anyone – and it went like this…
Every evening when it came to getting ready for bed, I would mentally say to myself:
I am the kind of person who cares about the health of their teeth.
And no matter how tired I was, or how much I did not want to floss, this thought helped me just do it. Because I tricked my brain into attaching a view of myself to the act of flossing. And then the more I did it, the more it became an actual habit. (90 days-ish to create the neural pathways that help a habit stick in the mind).
Back to my earlier point, about focusing on the outcome of a goal, here again I didn’t focus on the outcome - I must floss my teeth - instead I delved into my identity and attached the habit (flossing) with the idea of the person I want to be.
The fact is, our behaviours are a reflection of our identities. If you’re someone who works out in the gym 5x a week, you are a ‘fit’ person. If you’re someone who meditates most days, you are a ‘meditator’. What you do and what you think about yourself is who you are.
To create habits that last, to create new behaviours, you need to start thinking about yourself as the kind of person who does something. You need to build identity-based habits.
I decided I wanted to be the type of person that cares about their dental health. And then every time my brain would try and argue its way out of flossing - I’m tired, let’s do it tomorrow! – I could counter with the question: What would someone who cares about their dental health do?
And the answer, obviously, was to floss my fucking teeth!
(Can’t believe I’m writing an entire column about my dental health? Me neither.)
This approach has been so helpful for me. Moving from an outcome-orientated approach to one which is based in identity and process, has shifted the way I think about myself and my relative goals and successes.
(FYI: Remember when I wrote about increasing friction? This absolutely does not apply here. With health-based habits you want to quickly and effectively remove as many pinch points as possible. Eg: If you want to drink more water then fill up a big glass and put it by your bed for when you wake up. Make life easy.)
In sum: if you’re looking to make a change this year then stop focusing on the outcome, on the results, and start thinking about the type of person you want to be. Focus on your identity, the results will come.
P.S: Curious about the other habit I’ve managed to stick to? It’s about frogs, and will have a whole feature of it’s very own next week!
What changes are you hoping to make this year? I’d love to hear.