Small Habits To Success

We often set goals in the new year. I do it and have always recommended it. James Clear’s new book The Atomic Habits Workbook has changed my outlook on how I approach them.

The typical approach to self-improvement is to set a large goal, then try to take leaps in order to accomplish it in as little time as possible. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves. But it often ends in frustration and failure. I believed it to be lack of motivation, but this book showed me that results have very little to do with goals, and everything to do with systems.

Here are some pointers on how to crack that.

Change The System And Change Your Life

Goals are good for direction and systems are necessary for making progress. Goals are the results you want to achieve, while systems are the processes that lead to those results. Focus on creating the right system, and it will bring you to your goal.

If you are having trouble with changing your habits, the problem isn’t you, or your lack of motivation, or your goal. The problem is your system. When you fall in love with the process, you don’t have to wait to be happy. You can be satisfied any time your system is running.

Stop Obsessing Over The Big, Start Focussing On The Small

All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a tiny decision.

When we try to change our behaviour, one of the common mistakes is trying to do too much in the beginning. It’s easy to get excited and jump right into training for a marathon, meditating every day, or reading a book regularly. But they are difficult to maintain in the long term. And it results in abandoning the habit.

Always start with the easiest version of the habit that you can stick with, and then scale it up from there. Don’t underestimate the value of doing a habit for even just five minutes. In the long run, those five minutes add up. You’ll be happier if you performed those five minutes consistently than if you did nothing.

Defining Moments Are The Result Of Previous Actions

There is no once-in-a-lifetime transformation. Success is the product of daily habits. Focus on improving by just 1 per cent daily, and you will get 37 times better in one year because of compounding.

We magnify such moments in our life. But don’t give sufficient thought to making small improvements on a daily basis, which position us for those defining moments. Success requires consistency.

Imagine sitting in a cold room with an ice cube on the table. It is 25°F. The room gradually heats up: 26°F, 27°F, 28°F, and so on. The ice cube sits there. At 32°F, it begins to melt. A 1° shift, seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it, has unlocked a huge change.

Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. We want solutions when what we really need is the right attitude—an attitude of perseverance. Attitude precedes outcomes.

Stay Focused

Focus gives an edge amid distractions. Diverting our attention constantly dilutes our ability to accomplish great things. Often, we don’t need more time, we just need fewer distractions. When you say no, you are saying no to only one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility. Clarity is freedom. Know what is important to you and it will grant you the freedom to ignore everything else. For instance, saying yes to consistently investing, irrespective of the volatility in the market, means you are saying no to selling in panic, no to staying away from the market, and no to acting on emotions and sentiment. You ignore all the noise and keep investing systematically in your equity fund.

Be Concerned With Trajectory, Not Immediate Results

Imagine a pilot flying an aircraft from LA to NY. If he adjusts the heading just 3.5 degrees south, it will not be noticeable at take-off, when the airplane is just a few feet off the ground. Over time and distance, this small degree will get magnified and the aircraft will land in Washington instead of New York. It is time that magnifies and defines the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy. Good habits build you up while bad habits pull you down.

When you put money in a 5-year bank deposit, it compounds over time. You get interest upon the interest. Same with our habits, they compound well-being or misery. Let’s say you have the habit of indulging in junk food. If you eat junk just for a day, there is no noticeable difference. But eat it regularly and it will show up somewhere. A day in the gym won’t show results. But an hour in the gym, five days a week, will definitely show results.

This is why it doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path towards success. Focus on your current trajectory, not your current results. It’s a much better indicator of where you are headed.

Start

If this interested you, then I wholeheartedly recommend The Atomic Habits Workbook. With plenty of worksheets, scorecards, and pertinent questions that get you to think, the author handholds you towards achieving your goals in a very practical manner.

This book will broadly enable you to decide the type of person you want to be, and how to prove it to yourself with these consistent small wins. It is this connection and feedback loop between identity and action that will keep you on the right path. Your current behaviours are simply a reflection of your current identity. True behaviour change is going to help you in changing your identity.

You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you will stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. To change your behaviour, you need to start believing new things about yourself.

Have a fruitful 2026!

By Larissa Fernand, Behavioural Finance Expert