Comments on: Turning Habits into Goals

By: Mystic Madness

Mystic Madness — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:33:12 +0000

Generally research has shown that it takes 21 days to bring change and get completely immersed in it. I think a buffer of 30 makes sense. What makes it difficult is the fact that sometimes you do lose track and lose a habit. This happenes and autpopilot things doesnt seems to work anymore. I hope you will bring some post on that too.

By: My Goals for 2008 are Daily Habits George Donnelly

My Goals for 2008 are Daily Habits George Donnelly — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:35:00 +0000

[...] Turning Habits into Goals [...]

By: My Get Things Done List » Blog Archive » April’s Best Posts [zen habits]

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 04:26:00 +0000

[...] Turning Habits Into Goals [...]

By: Shaine Mata . net › Goals and Habits

Shaine Mata . net › Goals and Habits — Sat, 05 May 2007 01:26:36 +0000

[...] was just reading Turning Habits Into Goals. I was a little confused at first, but on a second reading it made sense. You would normally set a [...]

By: David Hollingworth » Setting Myself a Goal

David Hollingworth » Setting Myself a Goal — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:18:37 +0000

[...] I’m sure I can do and part of the idea of doing this for a month is to establish the walking goal as a habit. The “unencumbered” bit is to stop me from hanging my camera and / or binoculars round [...]

By: Nneka

Nneka — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:59:42 +0000

Wow, Leo! Thanks for the shout out.

By: zenhabits

zenhabits — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 01:07:30 +0000

Great comments, Matt and Nneka! I appreciate that. If you haven't read about Nneka's Life Transformation Program, I think you'll find it very interesting (see her blog, Balanced Life Center, for more excellent articles). - leo

By: Nneka

Nneka — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 20:16:36 +0000

Good points Leo. I started with the habit thing last September. That’s how I came up with the Life Transformation Program: exercise, meditate, and write daily.

Thing is that after 3 months of doing it, I lost momentum. I got bored. I was still going through the motions, but I felt I needed to up the ante.

I would add that every habit should be attached to a bigger goal. Ann started from the big goal back. When I put the habits in place the big goal too ominous. I think I made a mistake because I lost my “why.”

Thanks for the post. I’m going back through my journal to figure out what got me started with those habits in the first place.

Cheers,
Nneka

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:13:34 +0000

I guess I just wanted to add my two cents. The way I see it is as follows: You have an “identity” or someone you want to become in the future–for example, a marathon runner. You need goals and habits. A goal would be something that you could check off, but a habit is really something you want to check off each day because it should at some point become automatic. So for this person, a goal might be–one marathon per year, and a habit might be to go to bed early, and get up early (so you can exercise). In other words, you have an end that you begin with, and you will use both goals (things you will one day finish) and habits (activities you will do on a daily/weekly basis) to help you achieve this end or “identity.” Anyway, that is how I look at the distinction between goals and habits.

Matt

By: zenhabits

zenhabits — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 20:09:59 +0000

Thanks for the comments, guys. I’m glad if the article was useful! – leo