8
Achievements and Habits Work Together

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them.

DENIS WATLEY

Suzanne is in the best shape of her life. She began running regularly in her thirties and completed her first marathon a few years later. Looking for a challenging, inspiring goal when she turned forty, she decided to run fifty marathons in fifty states by her fiftieth birthday. She calls it her 50/50x50 Challenge, and she’s well on her way. Now forty-four, she’s already checked twenty states off her list.

Richard retired from active Air Force duty five years ago and now teaches history at his local community college. After noticing students lacked both critical thinking and social skills necessary for leadership, he met with his advisory board on the problem. Agreeing on the need, the board asked him to create a new leadership curriculum in time for the fall semester. Richard took a sabbatical to work on the project, finished over the summer, and started teaching the new course on schedule.

When Tom worked out a proprietary color-pairing system for his interior-decorating business, his partner Isabelle had an idea. She found a developer who helped them create a mobile app that used phone or tablet cameras to match colors and suggest options for coordinating palettes. It took several months to work out the kinks. But after input from beta users, they set a March 1 launch date. They’re on track to beat it by two weeks.

Each of these hypotheticals—50/50x50, the leadership curriculum, and the app launch—represent one-time accomplishments. You’ll recognize the key features. They have a clear, definable scope and time frame for completion. These are called achievement goals. But there’s another kind of goal we also need to consider.

Bill and Nancy have an awesome marriage. It’s not just that they were lucky and married the right person. It’s that they have intentionally cultivated intimacy. As simple as it sounds, they have gone on a date night every week for more than two decades. This habit has provided a context in which they can have deep, meaningful conversations about the things that matter most.

Spencer is healthy and fit. Whenever he goes in for his annual physical, his doctor is amazed. He has continued to improve for each of the last five years. The surprising thing is that Spencer just turned sixty last year. But his health is not an accident. It all started when he began to cultivate the habit of strength training four days a week.

Larissa has built a seven-figure business in just three years. You might be tempted to write off her success to the fact that she stumbled onto a great idea at exactly the right time. Certainly, that played a role. But if you asked her the secret to her success, she would chalk it up to her habit of making five sales calls every single week.

Unlike the first three examples, these last three don’t have a defined scope or limited time frame. Instead, they represent ongoing activity. These are called habit goals. Both achievement and habit goals can help us design the future we want, especially if we can get the right mix and leverage their differences.

Distinctions with a Difference

As the examples above illustrate, achievement goals are focused on one-time accomplishments. They might target paying off your credit cards, hitting a financial benchmark, or finishing writing a novel. It’s essential that achievement goals include deadlines.

Habit goals, on the other hand, involve regular, ongoing activity, such as a daily meditation practice, a monthly coffee date with a friend, or walking each day after lunch. There’s no deadline because you’re not trying to accomplish just one thing. You’re trying to maintain a practice. Instead, there’s a start date, which triggers initiation. Look at the three corresponding achievement and habit examples in the following list for quick comparison.

ACHIEVEMENT GOALS	HABIT GOALS
Run my first half marathon by June 1.	Run 3 miles on weekdays at 7, starting January 15.
Increase sales revenue 20% by the close of the third quarter.	Call 4 new client prospects each week, beginning March 1.
Read 50 books this year by December 31.	Read 45 minutes each evening at 8 p.m., beginning immediately.

Following the SMARTER framework, the achievement goals in the table are specific, measurable, and have a time key, all of which drive focus and effort. When the deadline is up, we know if we’ve achieved the goal or not.

The habit goals listed also follow the SMARTER framework. That’s essential for knowing what activity we are trying to maintain and the desired frequency. While habit goals do not include deadlines, the most effective habit goals have four time keys:

1. Start date. This is when you intend to begin installing this habit.
2. Habit frequency. This is how often you will observe this habit. It could be daily, specific days of the week, weekly, monthly, and so on.
3. Time trigger. This is when you want to do the habit. It could be a specific time each day, week, and so on. This makes it easier to become consistent if you can do the habit at the same time.
4. Streak target. This is how many times in a row you must do the habit before you can consider it installed—that is, once the activity becomes second nature. With most habit goals, you can stop focusing on them once that happens.

The risk factor comes from maintaining your streak. Installing a habit takes a period of time, and it might be longer than you think. I’ll come back to this idea in Step 4. The sample habit goal templates in the back of the book not only have those time keys baked in but also a streak tracker to check off your progress.

Time keys are essential for goal attainment. Deadlines work best for achievement goals. For habit goals, try combining a start date, habit frequency, time trigger, and a streak target.

Which Works Best?

If you’re looking to create seven to ten goals, you should probably have a mix of both achievement and habit goals. The trick is to know when and how to use them. An achievement goal works for any project with a definable scope or limited time frame. Let’s say you want to increase your income. You can put some definition on that and set yourself a deadline. You could set an achievement goal like this: “Increase sales commissions by 20 percent by the end of the fiscal year.” Or let’s say you want to launch a new business. You can set an achievement goal like this: “Launch consultancy by June 1.”

Meanwhile, a habit goal works for desires without a definable scope or limited time frame. Let’s say you want to grow closer to God or become more spiritual. That’s not a one-time accomplishment; that reflects an ongoing reality. You could set a habit goal like this: “Spend 20 minutes a day in Bible reading and prayer, 5 days a week at 6:00 a.m., beginning January 1, and do it for 70 days in a row.” Or let’s say you want to develop more intimacy with your spouse. You could set a habit goal like this: “Take my spouse out for dinner and an evening of conversation, once per week, on Friday nights at 6:00 p.m., beginning March 1, and do it for 52 weeks straight.”

Another way to use habit goals is as a means to completing an achievement goal. Let’s say, for example, you want to write a 50,000-word book by June 30. You could identify several next steps, or you could focus on simply installing a writing habit. For example, “Write 500 words a day, 5 days a week at 6:00 a.m., beginning on February 1, and do it for 100 days straight.” Or let’s say you want to increase your revenue by 30 percent before year end. You could identify several next steps, or (again) you could focus on simply installing a habit. Remember the example of Larissa? To reach your achievement goal, you could set the following habit goal: “Make 5 sales calls each week to qualified leads, beginning January 1, and do it for 52 weeks.”

Different goals work for different people, and you can tailor your commitments to meet your personal emotional and physical needs. For some people, an achievement goal around health is the last thing they need. For some, it provides the motivation to get moving. You just need to find what works for you. It might be obvious to you or you might need to experiment and try out both to land on the best path.

The Right Mix for You

What you’re looking for is the mix of achievement goals and habit goals that’s right for you. Before we move on to the next step and discuss staying motivated for the long haul, I want to revisit the subject of risk and how to use it to help us reach our goals.