The purpose of goals is not achieving them.
It’s giving direction to your current actions.
And that’s what makes them different from a dreams.
Now. If goals give direction to current actions…
And current actions overrule your current beliefs and shape your identity…
Then goals shape who you are today, tomorrow, and who you’ll be long after achieving them.
The achievement is fleeting, the personality change lasting.
Choose wisely.
We all have the ability to decide what’s good for us when we take the time to reflect on it.
But we also overestimate our ability to decide what’s good for us in the moment.
Which means that we all need to be saved from ourselves.
How?
By deciding in advance.
I’m going to write, because I decided in advance that that’s good for me – even if in the moment, I’d rather do something else.
I’m going to eat those vegetables, because I decided in advance that that’s good for me – even if in the moment, I’d rather eat those fries.
You don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
But you do have a say in how you spend today.
And when you go to bed, and tomorrow becomes today, you’ll have a say in that day too.
And when you spend every today doing what’s important, maybe you don’t even need to know what the future holds.
To become you want to be (but aren’t yet) you have to start doing what you want to do (but aren’t doing yet).
Who do you want to be?
Which actions would that person take?
The questions are simple. But the path is erratic.
And that’s okay.
As long as you ask them once in a while, you’re well on your way.
“Getting better” at something is not a linear process.
You can practice every day and not see any progress.
In fact, you can practice every day and notice deterioration.
But it’s impossible to practice every day without building the self-trust that you have the discipline to practice every day.
I might not have clear proof that I’m becoming a better writer, but I have irrefutable proof that I wrote today, yesterday, and the past 138 days.
And because I write every day, the evidence is building that I am, in fact, a writer.
As my actions shift my identity, the probability that I’ll keep writing increases.
And as long as I keep writing, the probability of writing better work increases.
Tiny Trust Builders are the only reliable proof of progress.
I guess all I really want to say today is:
There’s something you’re doing great at.
There always is.
Can you see it?
If you don’t often go on detours, would there even be life in your day?
Maybe going astray IS the way.
