Why Commitment Works Better Than Goal Setting

I don’t know about you, but every time I have an idea - I go into full goal-setting mode. I formulate my goal (using SMART), I create a lengthy plan and I imagine myself achieving my desired outcome.

And for about a week I am pumped up and rearing to go towards my goal… until the very first hurdle, such as: I don’t know what to actually do every day to get closer to my dream!! What my next step should be? Where do I start?

There is nothing wrong with my goal. It is noble and flashy, alright - to write a book on self-care, for example. But do I really want to write 1000 words every day bang at 6 pm, come rain or snow, and finish it within 3 months?

Well, no, not really.

If anything, any time I give myself time-bound goals, I do everything in my power to sabotage those goals. They turn into my nemeses, and I do my best not to work on them. I work against them.

So, I started researching the question of why I fail to achieve my goals. I’ve added anything I found remotely useful and on the subject to my Apple notes.

And an interesting picture arose - goals that are missing true commitment are very difficult to achieve.

Every book or article on achieving your dream will give you ubiquitous advice that you need to set goals in order to achieve your dreams. Which is fair enough.

But goals do not always help us get where we want because goals are very abstract, and often too big to do anything with.

Goals are our North Star. They are where we want to go, what we want to achieve.

But goals by themselves are too overwhelming.

We need to change our day-to-day first and decide to commit to something that is important and achievable. Then and only then goals and dreams turn into reality.

Goals that are missing true commitment are very difficult to achieve.

When Goals Feel Too Big

For example:

I want to be healthy.

What does it mean as a goal? Don’t get me wrong, it sounds great; it sounds Instagram shareable, but how do you achieve it? You won’t come up with this goal and then wake up healthy the next morning, will you? Something needs to happen in between now and when you have achieved your goal.

Wanting to be healthy is too abstract: what does it mean to be healthy (healthy as in fit, toned or something else?) Does it mean losing weight? Does it mean starting a certain exercise regime? Does it mean not eating something?

I want to be healthy is too abstract.

You could be more specific and use SMART goal-setting technique where you break your goals into Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound and say that being healthy is about:

S- losing weight

M- by including more vegetables and fruit

A- every day in my diet

R- at dinner time (because I cook them myself, unlike lunches that I buy from shops)

T- for the next 2 - 3 months

This goal is smart for sure, but I would not know how to approach it. It’s a bit too big as an idea and seems a bit too scary, like that elephant that you can’t eat in one go.

Questions start swarming like flies - what fruit and veg? How many? Do I have to include 5 at every meal or more because my goal is to lose weight? What if life intervenes and I can’t create a meal plan that includes veg or fruit?

You could try other goal setting approaches, such as WOOP, but you still need to commit to changing your day-to-day in order to achieve it.

The Power of Commitment

And here is the difference between goals as such and committing to something achievable: first and foremost, you need to commit to changing your daily habits and include something new that will get you closer to your goal.

What could it look like?

You want to lose weight by eating a healthy diet which includes veg and fruit every day for dinner for the next 3 months.

Does it really matter how many fruit and veg? Well, not really. At least not to begin with. First, you need to establish a new daily habit which includes eating fruit and veg every day for dinner.

If you add one extra veg - your are already closer to achieving your goal. And the next day you might include 5.

What matters is you continue with your commitment and do not break it. Every day you add some fruit and veg.

Even bad days still count. If you only managed to add a slice of apple - you are doing great.

It’s about changing the way you do things. Instead of starting on Monday or January the first, you introduce that change into your daily routine one parsnip at a time.

Everyday Examples

Is it Jerry Seinfeld who wrote a joke every day without fail?

He himself says that it wasn’t always a great joke — sometimes it was just a few lines of absolute rubbish — but he wrote great jokes while he stuck to his commitment. Because when you commit to doing something every day, one of those days you will write something great.

It’s inevitable if you are consistent.

Or take Seth Godin — he writes in his blog every single day.

One day he might write something super profound, another day it’s just a few lines of simple reflections. But the thing is that he is committed to writing in his blog every single day.

His blog is part of his life.

"Tomorrow at about four-thirty  in the morning, there'll be a post on my blog. It will not be there because it's the best post I ever wrote. It will be there because it's Wednesday. Because I decided 20 years ago that there would be a post on my blog tomorrow. I made that decision only once. And if we can make a decision once to adopt a practice, then we don't have to waste a lot of energy renegotiating the decision." Seth Godin

It’s like brushing teeth - it might feel like a chore, but you have fresh breath at the end, so you’d want to do it every day to make sure you are not called a stinky-breath.

Michelle Segar (quoted in How to Take Smart Notes) uses commitment to convert her most stubborn clients into exercise aficionados. And she achieves this by creating satisfying repeatable experiences. The only thing that matters is that it gives them enjoyment so willpower is not needed. They feel like doing it.

When you commit to keeping that promise to yourself you stand a higher chance of achieving your North Star goal. Because you want to.

Gentle Promises to Yourself

So it’s a commitment that you make to yourself, to your life, to your goal that will lead you there.

And for people with ADHD (or anyone who finds it hard to bridge the gap between A and B), for example, goal setting is so scary because you can’t imagine getting from metaphorical A to B. It’s like there’s this massive gap, and you don’t know how to bridge it.

But if you say that to get from A to B, you need to be doing this simple step every single day, it’s much easier, isn’t it?

Because you know what you need to be doing, and your brain will not sabotage you by coming up with loads of ideas about why you can’t do it.

Instead, you’ll be more motivated to stick to it because it’s very easy:

I’ll have a veg of fruit with my dinner every day is much easier than: I’ll add veg and fruit to my diet (too vague).

Or

I need to do 10 sit-ups every day to be healthy instead of I will run a marathon this spring.

Final Thoughts

So the commitment is more gentle on your body because you commit to making your goals come true by including tiny changes to your daily routine.

It’s like making a little promise to yourself.

And if you commit to something — as long as you don’t make that commitment crazily, ridiculously complicated like you do with goals — it’s much easier to stick with them.

References

1. Ahrens, S. “How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning, and Thinking”. 2nd ed. [audiobook]

2. Brustein, D. "Seth Godin on why having a consistent practice is the birthplace of creativity (not a muse)", Forbes

3. Burkeman, O. "It's the little things", Change Your Life, Psychologies Magazine

4. Kompf, J. "A commitment is different from a goal – here’s why that matters", Psyche Magazine, Aeon Media Group Ltd