Goals: Set and Let Your Habits Do the Rest

Setting goals is an important part of any part of our lives. If you want to accomplish something, you have to set goals and take steps toward them in order to be successful. That is the essence of goal-setting: taking measureable steps toward success. Taking steps toward success is more than just wanting to do something. When you set a goal it is turning an idea into action.

Goals are easy, staying aligned with the goals we set is where the challenge comes in. If the accomplishment of goals was as easy as setting them, we would all be wildly successful. Every New Year’s Resolution would come to be and we wouldn’t ever have to question it. The facts and our experience strongly show us that setting goals and accomplishing them are two very different steps in an important process.

So, what do we need to do to make accomplishing goals part of setting them? Well, once you are in the habit of setting realistic goals that work for you, it becomes that automatic. At least it feels automatic. Think about it this way:

When you get in the car and put on your seatbelt, you are doing so for a number of reasons:
1. Safety- you know that a seatbelt can mean the difference between safety and serious injury or even death if you don’t wear it.
2. Legal- you know that if you are pulled over and not wearing a seatbelt, you will be given a ticket for not obeying a basic traffic law.

These are the reasons you are using a seatbelt in your car. You do this every time you get in and drive anywhere. You do this each time, no matter where you are going and no matter how rushed you are. If you are taking a leisurely drive, you put your seatbelt on. If you are hustling to get to a meeting, you put your seatbelt on. You put your seatbelt on no matter what.

How did this become automatic? Wearing your seatbelt in the car became automatic because we know how important it is. We have two very clear motivators to keep us from neglecting this habit. Bodily harm is a good motivator and so are tickets and fines. These motivators are important and will keep us on track with our goals of not dying. They are helping us keep as much of our money as possible and keeping our driving record clean all at the same time.

The motivators behind goals are important to get you going and to help you start making changes to see the results you want. When you think about health, there are many motivators that become a factor to get us moving. Improved daily feeling, avoidance of long-term health issues, weight loss and other factors are enough to get and keep most of us setting and reaching goals to live healthier.

Motivators are important, but the biggest factor in our health is our habits. The habits of diet and exercise are what bring us the results we are looking for, or keep us from seeing them. If your habits are in line with your goals, you will see the results you want. If they are not, you will struggle and not see the results you want to see.

In other words, our habits are the most important factor in success. Remembering that success is nothing more than setting and reaching goals: our habits are what allow us to reach goals by making the actions part of our daily routine.

Often, the most influential things we do are things we no longer think about. When you put your seatbelt on, you don’t have to think about it. You do it every time, yet it doesn’t even enter your conscious thought most times because it has become so automatic. The motivators are there. You could recall in an instant WHY you are wearing your seatbelt, but you don’t have to think about it in order to do it.

That is what healthy living habits become for healthy people. You know WHY you are eating healthy foods and getting your exercise in each day. You know why you are doing this day in and day out, but you don’t have to think about it because you have set goals and made the action part of your daily routine.

It gets easy. It may be a challenge to get started, but trust me, the more you do something, the more you will be able to do it without it feeling difficult. The longer you do something, anything, the more natural it becomes. As it becomes more natural, you won’t be thinking so hard about the reasons you are doing it or the alternatives to doing it. You will just do it.

The best part about success is that you are reaching goals you wanted to reach. What is success? Success is when:
You set goals.
You are motivated to achieve your goals.
You develop habits that help you achieve your goals.
You achieve your goals.

The first step is to set your goals. If you set them, write them down and understand why you want to reach them, the habits that are necessary to reach them become clear and you can easily make them part of your routine.

As you do that and they become more and more natural for you, you will see success. Setting goals and keeping focus on the action is the best way to develop the habits you need to succeed. It is your habits that are going to help you reach your goals. So, if you want to be successful, set goals and let your habits do the rest.