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This is a super powerful concept I learned during 2022.
“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your habits.”
The importance of daily habits
When I suddenly entered the disability and rare disease caregiving world, I thought I would have to give up many goals I had for myself, and that life as I know it is over for good. But I was wrong.
Very often we start a new year with big commitments. Eating healthier, finding more time for ourselves, exercising more regularly. As a result, gyms fill up for the first two weeks and then… more of the same. The thing is, life is not a row of big decisions, those happen just a few times, if at all, during the year. In reality, life consists of small, everyday choices we make.
In reality, life consists of small, everyday choices we make.
Go at your own pace
I am a big fan of starting small and dosing ambitions. So, in my case, all I had to do is “adjust” my habits to cater for this new change in my life and make the best out of this journey reaching those same exact goals. I had to give myself some grace. I had to embrace this change. I was different. My life is now different. And hence I needed different habits and a much more flexible pace to reach those goals.
My advice for anyone reading this:
“Start small. We are what we live, not what we achieve.”
Focus on better habits, not higher goals
This is much like James Clear’s Atomic Habits method, which is a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. If we want to form new habits, we should make them obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying. We all have daily habits that shape us and impact us in smaller and bigger way.
If we want to form new habits, we should make them obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
For 2023, make better habits not higher goals. Smaller habits are not scary. Therefore, you will manage to keep it up. And instead of New Year’s resolutions, try adjusting or creating different habits and finding ways to make memories and enjoy the growth journey, not just look to the destination.
Celebrate the action, not the outcome. Outcomes aren't always in our control, but we can always decide to act and make the best of things.
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