Why Goals Need To Become Habits

Welcome to episode 134 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, the Business Growth Coach. Now, this episode is about why goals need to become habits, and this is the exact reason why 90% of people fail to achieve their goals. Now, we're going to look at why turning goals into habits is essential for making progress sustainable and manageable. So first off, let's break down the example of someone who wants to run a marathon.

Now, goals versus habits. A goal, for instance, to improve stamina to run a marathon in six months, yeah? The habit then is committing to running every morning and gradually increasing the distance. Now, this is really critical to understand because the reason of why goals need to become habits is consistency.

Now, a goal is a destination, but without consistent action, it's just a wish. And by running every morning, the individual builds a routine that naturally leads to stamina improvement. And then momentum. So habits create momentum.

You imagine, you know, as soon as we start applying focused action into something for even 1% every single day, the shift is huge. It causes a ripple effect. Now, starting with short runs makes it so much easier to increase distance gradually. Now, this reinforces the behavior, and it makes it feel way less daunting.

So people tend to get over the procrastination quicker. Now, breaking the goals into actions. What we want to do is have small steps. So instead of focusing solely on the marathon, the person can break the goal into smaller, actionable steps like running for 10 minutes, then 20, and so on.

And this makes the process less intimidating and way more achievable. Tracking progress. Again, common pitfall. What we need to look at is, for instance, in running a marathon, is the daily runs.

They provide this tangible progress to track. So this can be really motivating, seeing what we've already achieved, the fact that we've been consistent, we're creating momentum, and each completed run is a small victory, reinforcing the habit. So for everything we have in our lives, we have to remember that 95% of what we do every single day is not in our control because it's in our subconscious. Only 5% of what we do is in our conscious minds.

And what happens is, is if we begin to develop maybe a negative habit, all we're doing is telling our brain, right, this is what we do. It's our go-to. And we see this a lot in cases, maybe for instance in anxiety or nerves. Let's imagine you were going on stage and you were petrified of public speaking.

Because you have told your brain, I am petrified of public speaking, it has created a neural pathway to go, yes, okay, this is the thing, this is the learned behavior. We start to feel nervous. Yep, okay, we've actioned that in the body, and let's run that loop again. And what we do is, the more we do it, we strengthen that neural pathway, and then this becomes the habit loop.

And what we want to do is we want to break that and then form a new neural pathway and change that behavior. Now, it's totally possible to rewire your brain. It's totally possible to learn a new habit and to take a bad habit, break the pattern, and move it into a more positive. But this is why when we talk about goals, it's so, so important that we look at the actions, and the actions then become the habits.

So the benefits of habits for long-term success are things like adaptability. So if circumstances change, like, you know, it could be a busy schedule. Having a running habit makes it easier to adjust, and maybe they run for 15 minutes instead of their usual 30, or still maintaining that routine. The mindset shift.

So running on a regular basis shifts the person's identity to consciously, I am a runner. And this mindset strengthens commitment, and it makes it easier to stick with the habit, even when motivation starts to wane or challenges present themselves in your life. So the last point here is about resilience against challenges and overcoming setbacks. So, for instance, let's say they miss a day, and then they basically can just return to their habit without feeling like they failed for the goal.

So let's say if they miss a day, they can return to their habit without feeling they failed their goal. So let's look at it this way and reframe it. Habits provide a safety net, encouraging them to get back on track. So by framing a marathon goal as daily running habits, the individual lays the groundwork for not just achieving that goal, but also cultivating this healthier lifestyle long after the marathon is actually over.

Now this approach turns aspirations into lived experiences, making success feel inevitable. And this is really important because when we look at this and how we're going to adapt our new way of thinking, imagine your goal today, whatever that is. Start to jot down the actions that relate to that goal, and start to think how we can weave these into what we're doing on a daily basis. Now a classic example of this is let's say you wanted to develop a new habit where every single morning when you brush your teeth, you want to floss and use mouthwash.

Because you're already doing the habit of of brushing your teeth, it's second nature. You get up in the morning. It's not even conscious to you. It's just what you do.

You are on autopilot. When we start to weave in something into this already established strong habit, you are 10 times more likely to achieve it. So is there something you're doing that you're so consistent with that you know is a really strong positive habit that you can attach one of these actions to? And this is where things start to happen and the magic really comes to life.

Because I promise you, even in a matter of three days, you will start to see the shifts. And the biggest piece of advice I can give you about establishing positive habits is start small. Micro actions. Building on these every day.

As soon as you've achieved it for even three days, your whole mindset, your whole positivity, your motivation and inspiration starts to really rise. And then this in turn makes it easier because as soon as you are achieving your goal, guess what happens? You get a little hit of dopamine. And this is why when we form negative habits, like maybe snacking or it could be smoking or whatever it is, that because we like that habit and we achieve it and we do it a lot, then we get a little hit of dopamine.

That means that it's addictive. We want to do it more, so it strengthens that neural pathway. So the key is here is rewarding yourself. And every time you do it, think about, oh my goodness, I did it for a day.

I did it for two days, three days. Reward yourself. Get that hit of dopamine and get your brain into thinking, oh my goodness, if we continue this marvelous new habit, we're going to get our hit and then our addiction is satisfied. So it's entirely possible to make the shift.

It's entirely possible to reinforce and reinstate, you know, old habits. And the great thing is, is if you used to do something, your brain will learn really quickly because you'll already have that neural... Neural pathway in existence, and then you go back to it, you start doing it again and again, and straight away you're strengthening it, and your brain is moving that into its conscious. It's like we've done this before, we know exactly what the script is, and we know how to achieve it.

So don't be the 90% that don't achieve the goals. Be the 10% of people who are achieving their goals and dreams on a daily basis. So good luck, and let me know how your habits go. You can follow me on all the normal channels at Dawn McGruer.

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast, and for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit and success, and join our community, go to dawnmcgruer.com.