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What Happens When You Stop Focusing on Goals and Start Building Habits Instead?

My habit completion tracker from June 2025

For 2025, my slogan has been: “Forget about goals and focus on habits. The goals will take care of themselves.” 

Since June, I’ve been more consistent with my habit tracking than in all the previous years combined, and the results have been remarkable by the grace of God.

I’ve applied the same framework with my personal development clients, and I’ve noticed that most of them seem surprised when I ask them to perform a simple habit and report on it daily.
 What’s even more surprising for many, even if they don’t admit it, is how hard it actually is. Maybe you’ve tried it yourself: tried to stay consistent with a single habit for 30 days, only to struggle day after day. At some point, you probably paused and thought, “Wow! What’s wrong with me? Why is this so hard?”

A simple trick that has helped me stay consistent with most of my habits this year is to first develop the habit of tracking my habits.
Yes, I know it sounds strange, but here’s my logic:
If I can get consistent at simply checking whether I did a habit or not, then I can level up by going from just tracking to actually increasing the number of days I successfully perform those habits.

So, try this:

  • Set one secondary habit for the next 30 days. For example: Jog for 10 minutes, five days a week, from 6:00 a.m. to 6:10 a.m.

  • Set one main habit of tracking that habit. Remember, the main focus is on whether you’re tracking or not, not necessarily whether you’re doing the habit.

In effect, you’re doing two habits:

  1. The habit itself, and

  2. The habit of tracking your habits.

If you’re a business leader and need help building the right habits to achieve your goals for 2026, guess what?

I am starting a newsletter along those lines. If you are interested in receiving insights on this kindly join the newsletter with this link HERE
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