I am reading an article on Life Hacker about creating better habits. It’s not your typical article about setting goals and sticking with them. The title of the article as actually called “Are Your Goals Holding You Back?” Dan Shipper talks about the importance of creating a good habit before you can make it into a goal. He talks about how when he started forming the habit to exercise, that he would just exercise and he didn’t set any expectations. He did what he wanted for as long or short as he wanted it. It had to feel good to him.
I had an A-HA moment. It’s like dating someone. In the beginning you may just want to meet up with this person for a short date over coffee. If things go well, you will set up another date. Maybe a little longer. You have to give yourself time to connect emotionally with this person before you can start with the commitment talk. Goal setting is the commitment stage. Forming the good habit is the casual dating stage. For something like exercising or practicing piano or anything else I’ve struggled with, I need to casually date before I commit. Form those good habits by casually dating and building emotion to go along with it.