While reading in the context of yesterday’s post I came across this post on the Farnam Street blog making the case that habits, not goals, are the key to making a difference.
According to the writer, the problem with goals include that they have an end point after which people usually regress, they rely on willpower and self-discipline, even that they lead to recklessness once made public – as yesterday’s post did. In contrast habits are ‘easy to complete’, are ‘for life’, ‘can compound’ and can even ‘overshoot your goals’.
The argument is one-sided, creates a false dichotomy and advocates against a powerful tool in your arsenal towards habit formation.
A goal, set correctly, puts you on course to forming a habit. If you carelessly design a goal such that executing on it causes a major disruption to your life, it doesn’t matter if it’s in the pursuit of a habit or not.
But executing on a well thought out goal – with regular check-ins– provides a great framework for making choices and changes so that the end habit becomes sustainable.
I want to create a habit to get adequate amounts of water daily, as we saw yesterday. The goal of hitting a 250-day streak is very useful in identifying challenges or opportunities to set that habit because you’re checking in every day. The logging of water to Apple Health via the iOS Shortcut tracks the streak goal but it is in the service of identifying and removing friction in water consumption. Without it it’d be really hard to make sure I’m having enough.
The problem with the writer’s take is the following. If the pursuit of a goal is a drain on one’s willpower and causes one to be reckless, it’s a symptom of a poor relationship with oneself. If you have a healthy nurturing relationship with yourself, a goal becomes something exciting, a project to look forward to. Execution difficulties become problems to challenge yourself with. Setbacks become learning opportunities, achievements become heartfelt celebrations – all because it’s you making yourself better.