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Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

James Clear

People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them.
JAMES CLEAR

Close Effort Limitation People Rare
At some point, everyone faces the same challenge on the journey of self-improvement: you have to fall in love with boredom.
JAMES CLEAR

Boredom Face Fall In Love Improvement Point Yourself
At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.
JAMES CLEAR

Boredom Point Training
We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them.
JAMES CLEAR

Choice Early Habit Imitation
The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It’s the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows.
JAMES CLEAR

Mistake Repeat Ruin Yourself
When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.
JAMES CLEAR

Change Form Practice Preparation Yourself
In short: genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.
JAMES CLEAR

Areas Destiny Determination Opportunity
When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.
JAMES CLEAR

Fall In Love Happiness Permission Process Product Wait
Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.
JAMES CLEAR

Born Death Discipline Man Soft
Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
JAMES CLEAR

Enemy Friendship Goodness Habit Time Yourself
Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.
JAMES CLEAR

Bad Cost Future Goodness Habit Present
As a general rule, the more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more strongly you should question whether it aligns with your long-term goals.
JAMES CLEAR

Action Goal Happiness Rule Strong Yourself
It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are.
JAMES CLEAR

Belief Change Goal Habit Hard Planning Yourself
Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction.
JAMES CLEAR

Authentic Direction Feeling Genuine Head Right Yourself
You don’t have to build the habits everyone tells you to build. Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular.
JAMES CLEAR

Best Build Choice Habit Popular Yourself
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.
JAMES CLEAR

Game Goal Play Purpose Win

Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

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Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

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