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Hi Team,

A topic I have somehow avoided writing about in any real detail in the last 87 Weekly Email's is "goals". Although, we have talked about goal setting several times in our monthly DDB Team Meetings (which haven't been held for the last 6 months due to COVID), today I would like to have a deep dive into, why goals matter, why they are often so hard to achieve and are they overrated?

A goal is simply something you would like to achieve or a desired result. For a quick recap, here are a few of the "golden rules of goal setting" that we have covered previously,

• The goal must motivate you to take action.
• The goal must be written down and shared with others.
• The goal must be specific and measurable.
• You must have an action plan for how you are going to achieve the goal.

Everyone agrees that having goals in life is important and setting achievable and realistic goals is essential to personal growth and fulfillment. The problem with most goals is that to achieve them requires a lot of effort and self-discipline and eventually you run out of energy and discipline and your goal never gets achieved, until next year when you commit to "trying again". So the key to achieving your goals is to invest time and energy into developing the right habits that will help you to achieve your goals.
 
"It's the regular heartbeat of pursuing and nailing small win after small win that eventually leads to the big ones." Mark Manson

Most people overlook the importance of developing good habits because working on your goals sounds and feels much more important and appealing. But you can only achieve goals by breaking down each goal into small actions that can be performed and improved every day. Small actions or habits are the behaviours that lay the foundations for achieving your goals. Habits are like investments; they build up over time to achieve something big or significant. So your focus should be on the habits that underlie your goals, which will make achieving your goals inevitable.

"The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation" Kevin Kelly

Achieving most goals is all about maintaining long term motivation and the best way to do this is to have good underlying habits. For example, a universal goal of nearly everyone in their 40's or 50's is to lose 5kg's. The only way to achieve this goal and to maintain the weight loss long term, is to develop healthy habits such as low carb cooking, consistent mild exercise, consistent good sleep, and a positive mindset. These 4 habits are the underlying actions that over time allow you to achieve the weight loss goal. 

It generally takes about 30 days of consistently doing something for it to become a long-term habit. Beyond 30 days these actions become almost automatic and require much less motivation and energy to perform. Once you have several habits that are being consistently performed daily they become "compounding habits" and these are the behaviours that will help you achieve your bigger goals and make profound changes to your life.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit." Robert Glazer

So; are goals overrated, no I don't believe so, but they require good habits to become real!

As always
Thanks for reading,
Stay safe and develop good habits.
David