Failing to Achieve Your Goals? Build Better Habits and Quickly Succeed

The following is adapted from a best-selling book, The Habit Mechanic, by Dr. Jon Finn.

A TV commercial by sportswear brand Under Armour finished with the line: “It’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light.”

It showed the world-record-breaking US swimmer Michael Phelps grinding and struggling through arduous winter training. Phelps was preparing for the 2016 Rio Olympics. It was his last appearance at the Games. He won five gold medals and a silver, making him the most decorated Olympian of all time.

The commercial highlights the essential role your daily habits play in achieving your long-term goals. And make no mistake: habits play a major role in our ability to reach our goals. That’s because habits are all-pervading in our lives. At least 98 percent of all human behavior—how you think and what you do—is habit.

This means that the vast majority of what we do and think, every day, is a habit. The good news is that you can change your habits by deliberately working toward being your best.

The TRAIT Habit Loop

To help you get started in that process, I developed what I call the TRAIT Habit Loop. Triggers are the first part of the habit loop. They remind us what to do, for better or for worse. Smartphones are among the most powerful triggering devices ever created. They provide endless visual, aural, and physical triggers, and are always close by.

A trigger is always followed by a Routine. For example, your phone buzzes (trigger), you check it, see a message from your partner, and respond (routine). The routine is driven by an APE Incentive (more on that next).

The AI in TRAIT is for APE Incentive. The APE (Alive, Perceived, Energy) Brain is the driving force behind our behavior. So habits connected to survival, maintaining and enhancing social status, and saving energy are easy to build because these factors are most rewarding for the APE Brain.

The final T is for Training. The more you practice a habit, the more neurons in your brain become dedicated to it. More neurons make habit loops more powerful and easier to execute.

Do an In-Depth Habits Reflection

Now that you understand more about how habits work, you can begin to analyze your own in more detail by doing what I call an “In-Depth Habits Reflection” exercise. Remember, habits are the foundation of achieving your goals.

You will fail if your habits are not helpful to achieving your daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Creating more helpful habits will make it easier to make progress, succeed, and thrive.

To help you understand which new habits would be helpful to build this month, score yourself for each of the following statements from 1 to 10, where 1 equals “never” and 10 equals “always.” Adding notes and specific examples next to statements that really resonate with you will be useful.

1. I give in to temptation and act impulsively. Score: ____
2. I do things I regret. Score: ____
3. I jump to conclusions. Score: ____
4. I have no discipline to keep going when things get difficult. Score: ____
5. I have no discipline to stay on a task and complete it. Score: ____
6. I stay in my comfort zone, and this stops me from being my best. Score: ____
7. I cannot resist temptations to quit. Score: ____
8. I do not continue to work when the reward is a long time in coming. Score: ____
9. I beat myself up when I have messed up. Score: ____
10. I am overconfident, and this has unhelpful consequences. Score: ____
11. I make excuses for my bad behavior. Score: ____
12. I do not push myself out of my comfort zone because I do not want to fail. Score: ____
13. I avoid taking personal responsibility for the quality of my own work. Score: ____
14. I let people down by NOT completing tasks on time to expected standards. Score: ____
15. I worry about things I cannot control. Score: ____

Now consider your scores. Identify the highest scores and the connected habits. Now, try to write down a typical way you use your most unhelpful habit, for example: “I beat myself up when I make a mistake.” Don’t worry if you are not sure what to write; I will help you think about your unhelpful habits in even more detail shortly.

Reflect on Your Helpful Habits

The next phase of the exercise—what I call the “Helpful Habits Reflection”—is designed to help you build on what you learned from the In-Depth Habits Reflection. This helped you think about your unhelpful habits. So at this point, it might be useful to reflect on your In-Depth Habits Reflection notes and scores.

To complete the Helpful Habits Reflection, read the following 13 statements. On a piece of paper, choose your current position for each one from the following three options: Not a priority, I already do this well, or I need to do this better.

1. I reflect on my diet, exercise, and sleep, and plan to make daily improvements in these areas.
2. At the end of the day, it would be helpful to reflect and highlight what went well and what I can improve tomorrow.
3. At the end of every week, it would be helpful to think about what went well and to plan how I can improve next week.
4. From time to time, it would be helpful to think about my future, and set long-, medium-, and short-term goals to focus my efforts and achieve my future ambitions.
5. It would be helpful to regularly update my yearly and monthly calendar to add in important work and life activities.
6. It would be helpful to recognize when I am stressed and successfully plan to reduce my stress.
7. It would be helpful to monitor my confidence levels and successfully build up confidence in areas where it is low.
8. It would be helpful to recognize when my emotions are unhelpful and successfully keep them under control.
9. It would be helpful to successfully plan to improve my productivity levels.
10. It would be helpful to successfully plan to improve my learning and performance in areas where I want to improve.
11. It would be helpful to successfully plan to improve my performance under pressure.
12. It would be helpful to plan out my day to improve my productivity.
13. It would be helpful to learn how to become an even better leader.

Now that you have reflected, give each area you have rated “I need to do this better” a priority score (1 = lowest; 10 = highest). This will help you organize which areas to focus your attention on first.

Reflect on What You’ve Learned

If it is helpful, write down some reflections about what you have learned. Make a note of the helpful habits you already have that make your life easier. But also begin to consider which new helpful habits you could develop to replace your unhelpful ones.

By reflecting on your habits, you will have identified the most significant challenge(s) or problem(s) your APE Brain poses. Now, you can focus your attention on building habits to overcome those challenges.

Remember, it’s only realistic to make one tiny change at a time, or build one tiny new habit at a time. Nobody has the capacity to completely overhaul and change their behavior in one go. It is a gradual process.

For more advice on how to build better habits so you can reach your goals, you can find The Habit Mechanic here.