Without goals you will have difficulty achieving a significant level of success.  This stands for anything you really want, whether it is health related like losing weight or career related such as becoming a CEO.  Without goals you don’t have a road ahead of you to follow.  If you don’t know where you are going how are you going to get there?

But, your goals are worthless.  They REALLY don’t matter.  It’s just a fantasy, a story of desire you tell yourself, unless…

UNLESS your daily habits are 100% congruent with your goals.  So, let’s look at daily habits. 

Let’s say one of your goals is to run a marathon in 6 months.  Great!  Your daily habits are as follows: 5-6 hours of sleep, run no more than 7 miles/skip workouts, poor eating habits. 

Results: Failure, or worse, serious injury trying to finish the marathon.  So, what did it matter what your goals were if your daily habits didn’t match? 

This is not to say you have to be perfect every single day.  You are human after all.  A slip up in your daily habits or a day off will not deep six your goals.  But, that can’t become your reality or you may as well have never made the goals in the first place.

How can you make your daily habits match your goals?

First…ask yourself what you need to do differently each day to make your goals a reality.  For example, if one of your goals is to lose weight, do your daily habits include exercising at a specific time and eating healthy meals?

Second…be honest with yourself.  Are you cheating and consuming more calories too often?  Are you skipping too many workouts, are they of a high enough intensity?  Do you need the help of a fitness professional or dietician?  Are your daily habits really matching your goals?

Third…make yourself accountable.  Whether you do this daily or weekly, you need to evaluate if what you’re doing is getting you closer to your goals.  If not, what changes do you need to make to your daily habits?  If it helps, have an accountable partner you check in with at least weekly.

So, which is more important, goals or daily habits? 

Goals are important to know where you are going.  Daily habits are important in getting you there.  Goals don’t mean squat if your daily habits don’t match up with meeting those goals.  So, if you want to make your goals a reality, your daily habits have to be the means to get you there.  Focus on the right daily habits and you will have success.