Identity, commitments & waypoints

Being goal driven has its upsides.

You're motivated to achieve and focussed on the outcome.

In the short-term, you're happy as you work towards achieving what you set out to do.

But goals can be fragile.

They're a vision you had from a past perspective.

They're fallible, and should therefore be malleable.

But it feels like you're cheating if you continually update your goals as you go.

It wouldn't feel right to play football and continually move the goal posts.

We've all known kids like that at school and no-one really liked them, so continually shifting our goals isn't the answer.

But how then can we take the good parts of goal setting and apply it to our lives, without rigidly chasing after an ideal that is no longer quite as ideal as it once was?

The reframe is subtle:

Be relentless with your actions.

By that I mean, focus on the things you can control, commit to taking specific actions consistently over time, and adjust your map of the terrain as you discover it.

Until 4 years ago, I had no ambitions for my physical health.

I simply ate what I wanted, with exercise only a by-product of enjoyable or necessary activities, like playing football, or cycling into town.

But one day, I looked at myself and thought, "huh, maybe I should start caring about my physical health, too".

A big goal, like 10 push ups, felt overwhelming, so I simply committed to showing up each day and doing what I could.

As with any attempted change in identity, it took time to form, but 4 years on I now find it more painful to miss a workout than to get one in.

Not physically, it obviously hurts more to break down my muscles than to wrap them in a duvet. But mentally, my identity and drive for integrity makes flunking out and losing the day grate on my core.

Identity is where it all starts, and is the only effective driver of action that won't lead to disappointment that I've found.

Our identity drives our habits, and our habits take the form of consistent, regular actions.

Those actions are checkboxes that help us see that our identity is real and we're not a fraud, that we do what we say we'll do.

But goals, goals are outside of our control.

Does it mean we shouldn't aim for them?

Not necessarily.

Ambition has value.

We should all dream, envision a future life that we want to build, and take action towards it.

But focussing on the outcome feels futile.

Is my happiness really in future me having abs? It's not.

But knowing that would be a cool outcome makes it a waypoint to head towards.

It gives direction to my identity based momentum machine.

It helps motivate me to recommit, to the sort of person I want to be now, and who I want to become.

It helps me picture what that might look like if I continue to prioritise healthy choices today.

What's most important is taking ownership. Ownership of who I am, the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual, and committing to continue working on that.

Knowing that there's desirable outcomes ahead, and using that vision to provide extra fuel for the fire is no bad thing.

But I won't be committing to getting a six pack next year.

It might be a waypoint, a direction of travel, but I won't have won or lost depending on my tummy definition.

Instead, I'll commit to continuing to work on myself. Understanding who I am, who I want to be, and using that to know where to focus.

Dreams of a better life are great and goals are a form of that, a form I'll continue to use as added motivation.

But taking ownership of me is key. Daily steps towards a better life. All the while remembering that the best one is the one I have today, and choosing to show up for that.

My identity forming commitments with waypoints to aim for en route.

That's my current operating system.

What's yours?