The Difference Between Goals and Systems, Consistency, and the Power of Atomic Habits

Hi everyone! Over the past week, I’ve been reflecting on what makes a good habit and why it’s so difficult for us to break or change negative ones. We often overlook how much of our day is shaped by the habits we follow. From the time we wake up to whether or not we make our bed, shower, or have breakfast first thing in the morning—these are all habits. In fact, the habits we form each day accumulate over time, and logically, the daily habits we maintain over months and years can have a profound impact on our lives.

Although I’m not an expert on habit-building, it’s something I—and many others—would like to learn more about. To do so, I’m turning to one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, James Clear. James Clear is the author of the New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits and the publisher of the popular 3-2-1 newsletter. He has a background in sports and played baseball at Denison University, where he was named to the ESPN Academic All-American Team in 2008. In November 2012, he published his first newsletter, which has since grown to over 3 million active readers. His theories on habit formation and the power of atomic habits have helped millions of people make better choices and build positive habits.

But what are "atomic habits," and how can they actually help you improve your life?

Atomic:

1. The single irreducible unit of a larger system.
2. The source of immense energy or power.

Habit:

1. A routine or practice performed regularly; an automatic response to a specific situation.

"Atomic habits" is a phrase coined by James Clear to describe small, incremental improvements that compound over time to produce remarkable results. Many people get the idea of starting a habit wrong. For example, let’s say you want to start running. One day, you tell yourself you’ll start running more, but you don’t have a plan or any idea of when or how you’ll make it happen. You sit on your couch for a week, with the thought constantly nagging at you: "I should really be running right now." Eventually, you find a burst of motivation, and you might run consistently for a few days or even a week. But soon, running feels tedious and monotonous... and the habit fades.

We can all relate to this story, even if it doesn't play out exactly the same way for each of us. We all have that one habit we try again and again to stick to, without success. So, what went wrong? You wanted to make running a habit, but without a clear plan or structure, you couldn’t get past the initial phase of starting. You wanted to change the outcome, but you didn’t change the input.

So, how can you make your habits stick? James Clear’s advice is simple: make it easy. Any good habit, no matter how small, is still a good habit. Take journaling, for example. Journaling has been used by thousands of prominent figures throughout history—from writers like Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, and John Cheever to inventors and leaders like Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, George Washington, and Marcus Aurelius. Journaling has long been a powerful tool for reflection and self-expression.

Many people today see journaling as a great habit that helps you record your life, thoughts, and ideas. But how do you make it easy? The answer is simple: just write one sentence a day. That’s it—no hidden secret, no life hack, just one sentence. Make it part of your routine, whether in the morning after you wake up or in the evening before you go to bed. It could be a sentence about what you're grateful for or something that happened during the day; it doesn’t matter. The amount of writing you do doesn’t matter. What matters is that you show up. By making any habit as easy as possible to do, you increase the likelihood that you will do it. One sentence today might not seem like much, but what about one sentence a day for 10 years?

The key to changing your habits is to change your identity. You don’t want to just read one book—you want to become a reader. You don’t want to run a marathon—you want to become a runner. You don’t want to work out four times a week for six months—you want to become the kind of person who exercises.

When trying to make something a habit, you often start with a goal—something to motivate you to keep moving forward. But people often make the mistake of looking at Olympic gold medalists or race winners and assuming that it was their goals or aspirations that led to their success. Goals suffer from survivorship bias. We see the winners and assume their success was due to their goals or aspirations.

Imagine a group of sprinters lined up at the start of a 100-meter race. Every single competitor has the same goal: to win. So, what determines who wins? It isn’t the racer’s aspiration to win that ensures success—it’s the system they used to prepare. The small habits and practices that make up your system determine whether or not you will succeed. As James Clear says, "We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems."

How can you implement these ideas into your life to create good habits and 1% improvements that lead to the outcomes you want? The first step is to stop focusing on setting goals and instead shift your attention to the system you’ll use to achieve your desired result. The problem with goals is that they make success and happiness conditional. For example, "I can be happy when I can run 10 miles" or "I will be successful when I make X." But the truth is, delaying your happiness until you reach an arbitrary goal is foolish.

If you focus on the system you’re using to achieve what you want, rather than the goal itself, you can find be happy anytime your system is running—not just when you accomplish the goal. Goals are also inconsistent. Once you achieve your goal, you may lose the motivation that pushed you to reach it in the first place. For instance, if your goal was to lose 10 pounds, once you reach it, there may be no reason to continue striving for health or fitness.

The key difference is that goals are about winning the game, while systems are about playing the game. Life isn’t a game you can win; it’s a continuous RPG (role playing game) focused on achieving the highest score possible. The only way to do that is to keep playing.

So, what are the key takeaways? If you want to make something a habit, you need to make it easy. Start small with something achievable, because habits aren’t about what you do today—they’re about what you do every day for the next 10 years. But committing to good habits is not enough. You must also change your identity and mindset. Don’t tell yourself, “Once I exercise every day for 6 weeks, I’ll be happy.” Instead, change your identity to the kind of person who enjoys exercising. Don’t tell yourself, “I’m trying to quit smoking.” Tell yourself, “I’m not a smoker.”

I hope these tips help you successfully commit to good habits in the long term and break negative ones. If you found this interesting or want to learn more, I highly recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear or checking out his 3-2-1 newsletter at JamesClear.com. I’ll leave links to both at the bottom of this blog, along with an article of his on journaling that I used as a source. Thank you for reading, and I hope you found this as interesting and compelling as I do!

James Clear newsletter: https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1

Link to the book Atomic Habits: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits

Article I used as a source: https://jamesclear.com/journaling-one-sentence

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