Feed Your Mind : Goals on Track

Have you ever felt massive butterflies and excitement about a new goal or habit, but quickly find yourself in burnout and completely abandoning it? 

Habit Formation Vs Goal Intoxication

What if I were to tell you that true magic lies in habit formation and not in reaching any particular goal?

For instance you set a goal to get fit by going to the gym for 45 minutes, three times a week. And then you miss a workout or don’t find the strength to exercise for the whole 45 minutes. Soon you revert to this all or nothing concept and you start thinking it’s not worth it, you’ve already messed it up, you’ll just start it over and do it perfectly tomorrow.

You end up thinking that the content of that specific action on that day, that’s what important.

That’s just GOAL FIXATION. You have conditioned yourself to believe that you only get to feel amazing if you do this exactly right. 

Consistent Action Vs Perfect Action

But that’s where you’ve got it all wrong. It’s not the actual content of the goal or the habit that matters. It’s creating the habits and consistent action.

Think about your life or the habit or the goal over a long term.

What really matters?

Three months of trying to do it PERFECTLY and eventually giving up or being able to create the habit of moving your body a couple of times a week when you said you would, even if you only do five minutes some days or 10 minutes some days? 

How much accumulated benefit there is to showing up imperfectly, even inconsistently but continuing to show up, rather than trying to do it perfectly and then doing nothing. 

Honoring Your Personal Commitments

The whole point of the goal is actually the relationship you’re building with yourself, with commitment and consistency.

Push yourself to take consistent imperfect action or even inconsistent imperfect action. Just not let yourself go back to zero because you’re not doing it perfectly.

So if you have a habit you’re struggling with, zoom out.

Ask yourself, how can you do it half-heartedly this week? How can you keep building the ability to show up imperfectly and inconsistently and keep showing up anyway?

That is what will change your life. Because a half-hearted effort is still an effort and in the longer run it will all add up to help you create massive, long lasting results.