"Habits Over Goals." The words crawled across the top of my Evernote screen. I nearly blanched in disbelief.

For years, I've been a goals guy. Translation: I'm a recovering Goals Hoarder.

I used to set goals for every year, quarter, month, and week.

Personal, relational, and recreational goals landed on my radar, and I'm blessed to say I accomplished nearly 90% of them.

It also came with self-suffocating pressure. Exhibit A: I felt compelled to be on all the social media platforms.

I spent hours each week posting, liking, tweeting (xeeting?), reeling, and mostly, being my own overpaid, underleveraged social media publisher.

That all changed when I burned out hard.

Close to five years ago, I ended up in the ER two weeks before Christmas.

It felt like a softball hit my chest.

I had numbness in both arms, a massive headache, and my equilibrium felt off.

For a former four-sport athlete, including gymnastics, that last part was a new, scary territory.

There's nothing like kissing your wife and kids goodbye, then staggering into the ER and saying you can't feel your left arm.

A full boat of tests revealed I'd experienced a serious anxiety attack.

Thankfully, my physical body checked out great, but my mental and emotional state were toast.

Pursuing my goals cost me peace and a sense of self-worth.

Life forced me to push the big red reset button.

I started focusing on what I did each day (habits), not some metrics-specific target to hit (goals).

That's also where I see many coaches, consultants, and advisors get stuck.

Annual planning is sexy as all get out, but it can slap blinders on negative behavior in the name of ambition.

Not hitting sales goals gives you 'commission breath'. It's that whiff of desperation.

Chasing goals and obligations often means force-feeding our message into different channels that aren't the right fit.

When you pursue goals instead of habits, it starts cramping how you talk about what you do.

It often means creating and publishing content just to check a box. "Gotta send an email to my list in the next 13 minutes, or I won't hit my January goal!"

(Is that email truly your best work? Or is it just cannon fodder for your audience's attention to blow past?)

There are few experiences worse than successfully hitting the wrong goal.

Been there. Done that. Have the 'tax write-off' from the wrong mastermind group to show for it.

To be clear: This isn't about goal-setting. It's about taking imperfect, intentional, and informed action.

It's about aligning your habits with the outcome you crave.

What do you want your everyday life to look like? Your schedule? Your conversations? Your responsibilities and commitments? Your mental hygiene? Your Joy Meter?

If you're under an avalanche of obligations and mismatched goals, this is your escape hatch.

Making the switch from goals to habits will give you three freedoms:

1. The freedom to focus on how you're communicating your expertise.
2. The freedom to position your services in a more relaxed way.
3. The freedom to lean into pursuing action with merit.

Nowadays, I'm focused on having meaningful conversations with the right people about the right problem they face, offering the right solution at the right time.

As many times as I get to every single day.

This past Friday, it was once. Yesterday? Eight conversations. Today? Three times.

I don't have a goal set this month for how many people I want to offer to work with me.

No, I have habits for what I do each day:

• Connect with only the right people, and keep the wrong people off my calendar.
• Share fresh, organic content with my subscribers. (Psst! This is what you're reading.)
• Direct my best attention toward the highest-leveraged work.
• Spend time writing great copy.
• Practice and study public speaking.

Lather, rinse, and repeat.

I review my monthly metrics after each week. Then, I adjust my habits in retrospect.

So, what are the habits you want to follow that you know will lead to the success you desire?

Work on your craft every day.

Connect with the right people every day.

Pick one problem, one solution, one platform, one audience niche, and one conversion mechanism.

Build your entire calendar around those details.

Focus on those and only those every day.

If you do, you will hit any stretch goal you can imagine.

And you will still love who you are at the end.

Your message — how you talk about what you do — will also be more confident, relaxed, and potent than if you were still chasing metrics tied to the month.

- Jon

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