Your Goals Are Overrated

0 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?

One thing for you to think about

Goals are the actions you think about but don’t do.
Habits are the actions you do but don’t think about.

Better goals require a lot of effort and change little.
Better habits will change everything.

Two things for you to ask yourself

What do you already do that moves you towards your goals? What moves you further from them?

One thing for you to try this week

Instead of setting a new goal this week, change one small habit—when you work, what you eat, how you rest—and notice what happens.

Reply and let me know.

One small daily habit that might change your life

You can read this newsletter every Monday, listen to my podcast every Wednesday, and still wake up feeling like your life is going nowhere. Because knowing what to do and actually doing it are two completely different things.

Which is why I built the Solved Membership. And, more specifically, why we’re running Values, Solved as a live cohort starting today—ten to fifteen minutes a day to help you figure out which habits are worth building in the first place.

Here’s the thing: if your life isn’t organized around what actually matters to you, it’s probably going to suck. The problem is most people have no clue what their values actually are. They’re living according to what their parents valued, or what society says they should value, or what made sense for a version of themselves that doesn’t really exist anymore.

The Values, Solved Course walks you through figuring out what you actually care about—and then helps you start building your life around those things instead. Because before you can figure out which habits to build, you have to know what you’re actually building toward.

There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if you hate it.

Click here to join the live cohort while you can.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to make a decision that can’t be undone.

Many readers decided to quit their job. Here’s Alison:

A quarter century ago, when my first marriage was falling apart and I was wondering whether to call it quits, my mum informed me in unusually sage-like tones that ‘doing the wrong thing is better than doing nothing, because at least doing the wrong thing leads to other sh*t.’ She advised me thus because this is what she didn’t do. All her life. She stayed in an abusive marriage, and never went anywhere, physically or metaphorically. I think she regretted it, and also admired me for not settling.

Unfortunately, aside from a few huge leaps into the unknown, I am my mother’s daughter and terrified of upsetting the status quo. This afternoon I am telling my manager that I am quitting my employment with her, as the job is entirely unsuitable to who I am and has made me pathologically miserable for almost four years. I don’t know what lies on the other side of this announcement, but the part of me that I’ve gagged with duct tape and hidden in the crawlspace is keen to find out. I’d say ‘wish me luck,’ but this terrifying act of radical agency has nothing to do with luck. Just gotta do it. Deep breath.

Rich is buying a business:

Wow—how timely is this! My career has been on autopilot for the last two years since taking a good-enough job after a really difficult layoff. I’m 54 years old. Someday I’ll figure out what’s next. Someday I’ll buy a small business and finally leave corporate America for good.

Well, someday just arrived. I took a great workshop this weekend about buying and running small businesses, and my wife and I signed up for their program and have now committed to buying a business this year.

The cost of inaction is often much higher than the cost of the wrong action. Someday just arrived.

Finally, Srishhti decided to walk away from someone she loves:

I have been in relationships and I enjoy it, but I do recognize I have patterns that affect the person I am with.

No matter what I do, I keep repeating the same mistakes and then asking for forgiveness. I am forgiven too but I understand that takes a lot of courage for the other person to do it again and again.

I have finally decided to leave the bond which I had for 2.5 years and yes it’s painful because I do know I want that person but if I stay longer I would keep repeating the cycle. It’s not that they want to leave me but I can’t see this cycle again and again.

I don’t know if I’ll ever find someone but even if I don’t that’s fine too. Hurting someone you love is just unjustified no matter how many patterns one has. I recognize that about me and I don’t want to hurt them further.

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
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