For the new year, consider this: You are the sum of your habits.
New Year New Me?
Nonsense: I’m the same me. You’re the same you.
Same strengths, same weaknesses. Jotting down a couple of goals and going out drinking isn’t going to change the trajectory of something as massive as massive as your life’s momentum.
It is thusly that we humans exist.
But with the New Year, we all feel the same pull towards rebirth, recreating ourselves. Smashing apart the hull of the old ship and building something shiny and sleek and new.
And maybe that, indeed, is an appropriate goal.
To become a NEW you. A you that, for whatever reason, has not yet existed. Someone you’ve always wanted to be, someone you’ve always felt was trapped inside of you and the limitations of your current life.
The thing is this: most people don’t need to recreate themselves. Most people are actually pretty damn good. They, we, just need a little tender loving care. A little elbow grease.
I love nautical metaphors, so lets do this: imagine you’re a ship on the seas. A Man O’ War from the Age of Sails. A huge wooden warship, bristling with guns and glory.
You’ve encountered more than your fair share of pirates on the high seas, are riddled with holes in your rigging, in your sides, and a few below the water line.
And now you have new orders: sail to Antigua, through pirate infested waters.
You have been given an OUTCOME GOAL: a goal that describes a specific outcome as your end point.
And this particular goal is completely devoid of nuance, strategy, tactic, wisdom, flexibility. It says nothing of the day to day events that have to occur in order for you to successfully arrive.
It is a recipe for disaster. If you operate with that goal as your singular guidance, you will fail. All hands lost.
What you need are PROCESS GOALS, which are goals that describe the development and implementation of processes or actions that will orient your daily activities, your daily life, to aim in the direction of a desired outcome.
In the case of the voyage to Antigua, important process goals would be things like…
Ensure the ship’s carpenters are adequately supplied and manned in order to perform routine and battle repairs, and ensure they are kept to task until this is completed.
Ensure the ship’s sails and lines are maintained.
Ensure the ship’s cooks have adequate supplies and staff to keep the crew fed and as happy as can be expected on a voyage through pirate infested waters.
Ensure that the gunners and marines train and drill daily with the ship’s guns and their own personal weapons to ensure that the pirates are annihilated with ease.
Ensure the compass, astrolabes, sextants, and maps are properly maintained and used by the officers and navigators.
You get the point.
If you nail the small stuff, the big stuff is easier.
If your daily activities are oriented towards the success you desire, then success will come to you more easily.
A ship is made one plank at a time.
And if you focus on laying each plank perfectly, then the ship will be a masterpiece.
Self-improvement isn’t a destination, its a journey.
It’s not where you’re going: it’s how you’re going to GET there.
If you want to lose body fat, excellent process goals will make that happen for you, automatically, as if by magic (so long as you are consistent with them).
1) “I will no longer buy junk food, processed food, soda, sweets, or alcohol, because I will no longer consume these foods regularly.”
2) “I will consume 40-50g of protein each meal.”
3) “I will wake up 1 hour earlier every day and will use that time to exercise.”
And if you build those processes, those HABITS, you’ll meet your goal before you know it.
Really its about habits. If you build good habits that are aligned with the life you want to live, you’ll make daily progress towards living the life you want to live.
Aristotle said “We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference.”
And thats really it.
You are not your goals.
You are your habits.
Build the best habits you possibly can.
