3 Effortless Steps to Help You Reach Any Goal

Habits and consistency are the keys to success — here’s how to leverage them to your advantage.

Table of Contents

 ∘ Introduction
 ∘ What is a Habit?
 ∘ 1. Make it Obvious
 ∘ 2. Make it Attractive
 ∘ 3. Make it Easy
 ∘ Final Thoughts

Pretty much everything we do is a habit. Whether it’s waking up and brushing your teeth or scrolling through your phone before bed, most of our actions are habitual.

In fact, researchers estimate that up to 95% of our daily behavior is driven by habit.

I just finished reading James Clear’s international bestseller: Atomic Habits, and it has completely revolutionized the way I view productivity, finance, my health, and even my identity.

He calls on a popular economic principle - something we investment nerds call compound interest - to form the basis of his argument. Compound interest refers to the massive compounding gains seen in long-term investments which provide consistent returns.

This popular mathematical fact referenced in the book exemplifies the significance of compounding returns:

“If you get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.”

Even though this is probably unrealistic given that it would be challenging to maintain a 1% growth rate every single day, the quote still expertly frames the impact of daily habits.

Considering the near-absolute control habits exert over our daily behavior, combined with the massive impact of compounding growth, it’s easy to see how building excellent habits might place you on a fast track to success.

Our daily habits are typically deeply ingrained in our brains from sticking to our routine for years or even decades. Given this, it is tough to create habits that contradict our current patterns. This is the main reason why so many attempts to diet, exercise, read more, write more, or commit to any other goals often fail.

However, Clear seeks to define a process that makes creating habits easy for anyone.

What is a Habit?

The preliminary question Clear must answer to clearly explain how to rework a system of habits is “what constitutes a habit?”. He defines habits as small actions which we perform consistently.

They are made up of 4 parts: cue, craving, response, and reward. Each specific part plays its own role in activating and incentivizing habitual actions. Thus, the key to building a productive habit cycle lies in exploiting each of these components to make your habits stick.

Step 1: Make it Obvious

The first part of a habit is the cue. This is where something, whether it be an object, a smell, a sound, etc., causes you to think of an action and initiates your desire to complete it.

Think about having the urge to go to the bathroom or get a cup of coffee as soon as you get out of bed. Our routine activities often serve as powerful cues to motivate our actions.

The reason why these cues are so powerful is that they are so obvious. Of course, you would think about brushing your teeth after waking up with a gross mouth. Obviously, you’ll play video games if you sit down at a desk which features your console as the centerpiece.

Linking your own powerful cues to productive habits is an excellent way to quickly improve at a new skill, hobby, or side-hustle.

In order to make your cues so powerful that you will complete them even on the laziest of days, you must locate them in the most obvious facets of your life.

For example, if you want to start a writing habit, open the piece you are currently working on before you go to bed so that it is the first thing you see when you use your computer.

You can use this technique to create powerful positive habits in any aspect of your life. Move your workout equipment into your room if you want to work out more; bring a book with you everywhere if you want to read more. You can really transfer this method to anything.

However, this is not the only component necessary for a successful habit. It is possible to create a strong cue that does not manifest into a habit due to a lack of desire or motivation. The following sections will detail how to account for both.

Step 2: Make it Attractive

Now let's discuss two other components of a habit: the craving and the reward.

A reward is chronologically the final part of a habit — it’s what you gain out of completing the action. Brushing your teeth gives you the feeling of a clean mouth; writing a killer article might give you the satisfaction of gaining thousands of readers, etc.

Naturally, the bigger the reward, the greater your desire for action. This desire is called the “craving.”

Aforementioned, a strong cue is not enough to guarantee a successful habit. It requires an attractive reward that stimulates an intense craving to actually complete the action.

Ideally, your habit contains an extremely desirable reward at the end of the road. However, it is possible to create artificial cravings for habits with little short-term reward.

For example, if you want to lose weight, do something you enjoy after working out. (play video games, read a book, watch TV, etc.) This causes your brain to associate working out with doing this activity that you enjoy.

Over time, this will trick your brain into telling you to work out when you actually want to watch TV. (or whatever else floats your boat)

The key to using this trick effectively is picking a reward that does not contradict the intended end goal. If you want to lose weight, don’t reward yourself with a cheat meal for working out twice.

A strong enough “why,” combined with an obvious enough cue, is a great strategy to create sustainable habits that will last a lifetime. But, there are a few more tricks to make committing to these habits easier that I think are worth taking note of.

Step 3: Make it Easy

Let’s talk about the lone remaining part of a habit: the response; it is the “response” to your craving. The response is the action that you are partaking in itself. If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s working out/dieting; if you’re trying to grow your blog, it’s writing, etc.

Often, individuals attempting to create a new habit lose motivation after draining their energy by repeating a task that is too difficult, too frequently. It is key to be realistic in your expectations when beginning to form a new habit.

Start small, then when you are comfortable, begin to scale up slowly. For example, if you are a new writer trying to write more, don’t commit to writing for two hours a day.

Instead, commit to writing for 30 minutes, or less, per day for a few weeks. Then, when you are comfortable with this, begin to gradually increase the time you spend writing daily.

This is a powerful factor in creating a sustainable habit. The easier you make an action to complete, the more likely it is that it will get done. (An application of the basic human law of least effort.)

Another important extrapolation of this principle is that you should remove any easier actions from your frame of reference when trying to create a successful action because they will distract you.

For example, if you are trying to be more productive when working at home, work in a separate room from where you sleep, watch TV, play video games, or do any other potentially distracting activities. This is critical in sustaining a habit, as it reduces the likelihood that you are distracted by something more instantly gratifying.

Final Thoughts — How to Use Habits to Achieve Your Goals

Creating daily habits can be a powerful tool in achieving major goals in your life. Aiming to write or study every day or workout five days a week and sticking to that plan for an extended period of time can have massive compounding results which allow you to reach new heights in your personal life.

By making these productive habits easy, obvious, and attractive, we can engineer the motivation to stick to and achieve our goals.

It is my goal to use this knowledge to help me lead a more successful lifestyle, and I hope it empowers you to reach any goals you have at work or in your personal life.

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