Achieving goals is much less a matter of sheer willpower than the accumulation of small, consistent behaviors. Goals will give you a direction, but progress requires good habits and systems to support them.
Here are some techniques to help you develop strong habits.
1. List some goals you would like to work toward. Make them specific, measurable, time-bound, moderately challenging, and in alignment with your other long-term goals and values.
Take ownership of them, even if you didn’t make them by yourself. You’ll be more motivated to pursue goals over which you exercise agency, choice, and control.
2. For each goal, list the specific habits that will lead to the outcome you want, as well as any bad habits that will get in the way. Many goal pursuits will benefit from seemingly unrelated habits, so consider your behavior holistically.
Each important area for mental and physical health (sleep, diet, exercise, relaxation) has profound effects on one another and on your level of motivation. Look for these related “keystone” habits when considering which ones are relevant to your goals.
3. Address the most important habits first. Estimate how much effort each one will require, and how many you can realistically handle at one time. Taking on too many will lower your chances of success. Don’t hesitate to start with just one habit if you need to.
4. For each habit, set a specific time (or block of time) and place. Write the following sentence down in a planner, calendar, or journal: “I will [do this new behavior] at [this time] in [this location] for [this long].” Writing on actual paper tends to reinforce the goal setting process more than other mediums.
5. When beginning a new habit, make it easy enough that when motivation is low and life is busy you can still make time for it. Decide on a minimum time or effort that is doable but non-trivial.
(e.g. a two minute workout, flossing one tooth, reading one page, etc.)
6. As a general rule, plan the habits that are hardest to engage in, that require the most energy to initiate, in the first 8 hours after waking up. This is when the brain and body are more action and focus oriented. Plan activities that put up the least resistance in the 9-15 hours after waking. Observe how your energy and effort change throughout the day and schedule your habits accordingly.
7. Visualize the behavior beforehand. Think about the specific sequence of steps that are required to execute the habit, from start to finish. Also visualize the positive outcomes of your success (both immediate and long-term)—how good you’ll feel afterward, etc. If you feel unmotivated and resistance is high, it will help to visualize the negative outcomes of your failure—how bad you will feel if you don’t achieve your goal, etc.
8. Consistency is key. If you’re in danger of missing a day, just show up. Don’t break the chain of continuity. If you miss a day, don’t try to compensate by doing more, just continue normally. Once a habit is consistent, then you can increase the duration or change the time and place to make it less context-dependent.
9. Attach new habits to existing habits. Associate a new behavior with a “trigger” behavior that’s already a natural or automatic part of your day. (e.g. associate waking up with drinking water, or driving home from work with going to the gym) When you write down the specific time and place you’ll perform a habit, preface the sentence with “After I [do this existing behavior], I will … ”
10. Design your environment to support your positive habits and inhibit your negative ones. (e.g. leave a glass of water by your bed to drink in the morning, place a book or notebook by the chair you’ll sit in, leave your guitar out of its case and in view, pin up images or symbols of your goals to motivate you or cue a behavior, etc.) Prepare your environment to make habits as simple and frictionless as possible. When using visual reminders, update or change them every day, otherwise you’re likely to adapt to their presence and ignore them.
Design your social environment as well. Surround yourself with people who encourage the goals and identity you aspire to. Find groups to support your habits and provide the added reward of social interaction. Have an accountability partner, someone to report to who can celebrate successes with you.
Beware of telling people about your goals before working toward them, as this may provide rewarding feedback for the mere intention, making it less likely you’ll actually pursue your goals.
11. Behaviors with long-term, delayed rewards benefit from some kind of immediate positive reinforcement. Create ways to enjoy and reward these behaviors in the moment or shortly after. Celebrate wins with (a harmless amount of) your favorite food, entertainment, form of relaxation, time with a loved one, a cognitive reward like positive affirmations, etc.
Attach a desired habit to a pleasurable behavior, and forgo that behavior unless you’re performing that habit (e.g. only listen to your favorite music, podcasts, audiobooks when you’re working out).
When you reach a milestone, give yourself a reward that reinforces your goals (e.g. new exercise equipment for working out, a new book for reading regularly, new cookware for sticking to a diet). The most reinforcing rewards are random and intermittent; when you feel rewards start to lose their motivating power, flip a coin to decide whether you will reward yourself that day.
12. Track your progress. Visual indicators of success (like checking a box or adding a bean to a jar) hold you accountable and are ways to reward yourself in the moment. Record and appreciate these small victories. Record failures too, allow them to register, but don’t punish yourself for them. Measure your progress in small intervals to accentuate growth and increase motivation. At the end of the day and week, review your progress.
13. Prepare for adversity. Have a plan for when your motivation is low and resistance is high, when you confront pain, stress, or temptation. Anticipate triggers, and prepare alternative behaviors.
Know that when you’re starting out it’s normal to work hard for relatively little result. Even after all the tips, tricks, and hacks, sometimes you just won’t feel like it. Remember that with each repetition you’re carving out a path (in your mind and body) that will get easier and make you stronger. Small gains will compound into significant progress in the long term.
14. Change your identity. Decide what kind of person you want to be and embody that role. With each small win, each act of dedication, you prove to yourself that you are a runner, a reader, an artist, etc.—someone who cares for themselves, who can do hard things, overcome resistance, and live in accordance with their values.
(Call upon these positive affirmations to reward successful habits.) No matter your level of skill or expertise, if you’re working hard on a habit you’re proud of, claim the title, incorporate the identity, and use it to empower your ongoing efforts.
15. Change your mindset. Your habits are not immutable qualities of character, but matters of small, consistent, achievable efforts. You can design the systems and lifestyles that support these efforts. You can choose the goals and values that guide these systems. Making and breaking habits is hard. Difficulty, far from signaling a lack of talent or innate ability, is a signal that you are pushing your limits. If you persevere, you will grow.
Your understanding of why you’re doing something affects the results you’ll see.
When we act voluntarily, deliberately, even happily, we see more positive effects than when our actions are forced or resented. When you think of a behavior like exercise, don’t think of fatigue or pain, but health and well-being. Cleaning your house isn’t a dull chore, you’re creating an environment conducive to peace of mind.
Associate hard habits with positive experience; associate difficulty itself with strength and growth.
When making new habits, you’re bound to fail sometime. How you treat yourself when you do, and how you perceive and respond to failure will be critical. Harsh self-talk isn’t motivating; treat yourself with kindness and compassion. Failure is an opportunity to learn. What went wrong? How can you improve going forward? Revision and iteration are natural parts of forming personal, lasting habits. Missing one day of a habit is a valuable opportunity to develop a different habit: that of responding well to failure, with renewed resolve, so that you’re back on track the next day.
16. Analyze your behaviors and motivations. What is the need being satisfied or the reward that drives a particular bad habit? Can you substitute a different, more healthy behavior that satisfies that need?
If you’re having trouble cutting sugar from your diet, ask why? What triggers your cravings? Is the issue environmental (are there too many sugary foods in your kitchen), social (are you enabled by other people), educational (are you unaware of the harms of excessive sugar consumption), therapeutic (is it a way to sooth the stress in your life), etc. The approach you take should be informed by your particular situation.
If you’re stress-eating, address ways to reduce your stress as well as improve your diet. If you struggle to clean your room, change the habits that put it in disarray, as well as the systems to get it clean. For many new habits there is a related old habit that should be unmade concurrently.
If you don’t know exactly why you’re pursuing a habit, or your motivation feels inauthentic, learn about the benefits of that habit (and the detriment of its opposite).
17. Be the architect of your environment, not the victim of it.
Are the systems and environments you’ve inherited dictating your habits? Are you taking control of the things that are within your power to control?
Is a fixed mindset keeping you from assuming responsibility for habits that you could change? Aspire to be the architect of your environment—of all your habits—not just on your behalf but on behalf of everyone you will influence.
Focusing on habits more than goals puts you more firmly in the present. A goal is something to aim at, a destination, a momentary arrival that calls for another destination. Habits are the journey, they constitute the bulk of our lives. We should find happiness in our daily habits, and not imagine that an ideal happiness awaits us only when we arrive at some future goal. This type of process-orientation isn’t just about increasing efficiency or productivity, it’s about increasing your moment to moment well-being. Reviewing your progress at the end of the day isn’t just an accountability measure, it’s a way to find satisfaction in a day’s work, in getting a little better than you were yesterday. Looking for the good in your regular behaviors and acknowledging your small successes in the present aren’t just ways to reinforce habits, they’re ways to achieve a more consistent and reliable happiness.
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