I’m young, I’m ambitious. I want to be fit and healthy, I want the perfect job, promotion and recognition. Perhaps migrate to Canada or Australia, I want good work life balance. I want to do something meaningful and impactful. A part of me wants to work hard, earn as much as I can, quit the job and become an entrepreneur. Even better, if I can become an entrepreneur while keeping my day job.

But I tend to lose focus, there are too many distractions. My phone, emails, social media and the guilt of not keeping up with the time table. There is so much to do, I know I can but I feel overwhelmed.

Let me take the liberty to say that “I” represent the average Millenial/ Gen Y of today.

If you can relate to the above, this is the THE ONE THING you need to do to get whatever you want in life:

Chase Habits not Goals.

As humans we tend to give more weightage to achieving bigger milestones in life, often ignoring the power of doing little but on a daily basis.

When I used to prepare for my engineering exams, I used to pile up everything for the last minute. On the eve of the exam, you realize that the syllabus is vast and there is no way you can finish it in the next 12 hours. But your only goal is the pass the exam, so you become smart and scout for last year’s question papers and xerox notes and carefully prepare for the sure shot questions. I’m not at all proud of this, but this is how I passed engineering. As years passed, I became an expert at last minute assignments, aced corporate presentations and quarterly business reviews. The goal was always to get the output out, somehow!

The only problem with this approach is that, it works well (most of the times) only with the pressure of external deadlines. If you were to assign self-improvement goals and set your own timelines, you will become miserable because you will keep procrastinating and your goals will become never ending 5-year plans.

Instead chase habits :
When you practice something regularly that it becomes difficult to give up, that becomes a habit. Forming a habit requires unflinching self-discipline and determination. Build habits not in an intention to achieve big milestones or large goals, but to enjoy the journey.

Don’t repeat my mistake of fixating on results, outcomes, goals, deadlines. Don’t wait until your are pressurized to perform.

If your goal is to achieve good work life balance in the next job, develop the habit of switching off work at a fixed time ever day, starting today. If your goal is to get a better job, don’t stress yourself out thinking about interviews, focus on improving the quality of your current work on a daily basis, sooner or later you will land your dream job.

With habits, you no longer have to feel pressurized with self-imposed deadlines. You no longer need to feel guilty of procrastinating, instead you will empower yourself to do anything in life, while unknowingly enjoying the process of doing it.