Good HABITS Can Take You Where You Want To Be
I’m pretty sure that every normal person have goals in life, how simple or grand it may be. Some people may already know how to achieve those goals, and have a clear pathway on what steps to take to get to where they want. But for the majority, that pathway to success is a foggy road full of uncertainty and distractions. The thing is, how awful that road may be, if you will take time to to take every single step along the way, you will surely get to your destination. The difference as to when you will get there, depends on how much effort and time you put into those steps.
I know you’re curious what those steps are. Well, the specific steps are dependent on what your goals are. It’s just like selecting what course / major you like to take in college. The classes and lessons differ depending on the course you take. But one thing is common in every student who goes to college, they all study. Maybe some students study only before exams, and others study everyday. Those who study everyday are the ones doing good habits that will surely take them to places. But its not just about plain studying just to get a passing mark. It’s about studying what you truly love, and doing those projects on a regular basis that will take you anywhere. Others will call this — passion, dedication, or grit — consistency is key.
When I was young, no one ever told me to find and do what I love, and do it every single day to succeed in life later on. So the importance of building a good habit didn’t really sink into my soul, until later in life. Though I ace in most exams when I was in school, I am very notorious with regards to procrastination, especially during my working years. I‘ve been putting on hold the projects I plan on doing (They’re parked in my evernote & trello accounts fow now). It’s just until recently, that I started picking which project is essential to me right now, and started working on them gradually.
With my innate curiosity about human psychology and behavior — why people behave and react as they do, I stumbled upon many articles and books about human motivation, to know the reasons of my own bad bad habits & procrastination. I was basically searching for some shortcut to solve my problems, and to be successful in a short span of time. But unluckily, there is no shortcut. You have to build your way up the hard way, and it will take you years to accomplish what you desire. The number of years depends on when you started doing that habit that will take you where you want. To be exact, it takes 10,000 hours to master something, as mentioned in Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers. He also stated various examples of successful people, and the reason why they’re successful is because they started young. So, to sum it up, their success is a result of their continuous daily practice for many years.
If we breakdown the 10,000 hours requirement of mastery, thinking we’ll do it for 8 hours / day (or 40 hours / week), it will take you ~5 years of deliberate practice to master anything. If you will include weekends, it will take you much shorter years; or longer if you do less than 8 hours per day.
This phenomenon is also focused on Jame’s Clear’s book, Atomic Habits. He even created a graph showing the compounding results of daily practice over time.
The catch is that there will be a period where you won’t see progress. (See below graph.) That plateau is what hinders most people from achieving their goals, because they stopped right away once they feel that they are not getting any progress with what they have been doing. I’m pretty sure this is one of the reason why I stopped pursuing my deepest passions few years ago. I just somehow felt I’m not that good at it, which makes me feel bad, and so I decided to move on to another thing-to-do. I shouldn’t have stopped. I should’ve just continued, and If I did back then, I should have seen far better results by now.
So, the trick is to just continue what you are doing every day no matter how little progress you create. Benjamin Hardy also echoes out this strategy in his articles & newsletters. He likes to call it the morning routine.
So, wherever you are now in your journey to your goals, just don’t stop. Don’t let any disappointment or failure stop you from continuing what you are doing.
If you are not sure yet where to start on reaching your goals? Just try to do something you love, and make sure you do it every.single.day — no excuses.
Take it one step at a time, and make sure to take a step daily. Every little progress counts.
