James Clear

It has to be something else.

Maybe having a goal is part of it.

Maybe it's necessary, but it's not sufficient for the outcome that you want.

And for that, what you need is a system.

You need a collection of habits that are going to make the difference and accumulate into a bigger outcome.

There's this interesting thing that happens if you if you have a really good work ethic, if you have a strong work ethic and working hard has gotten you far in life.

it kind of becomes a crutch.

For a long time, I was like, if I ever had a problem, I was like, well, I'll just work my way out of it.

I'll just work harder on it until I figure it out.

And that's great.

That's really powerful for a lot of things.

But at some point, it breaks.

You can maybe, if you really try, maybe you can work 10% harder or 20% harder, but there's some limit.

But if you work on the right thing,

Well, you could get 100x the result or 1,000x the result.

And so if you just keep your head down and work hard, it's very unlikely that you'll be spending your time in the highest and best way.

And the only way to figure that out is to have time to reflect and review, time to think.

So you need enough time to think to figure out what should I be focused on next.

And so I think that is almost...

Reflection and review is almost like the meta habit that is above all others, because if you give yourself time to reflect and review, then you can troubleshoot your habits and figure out how to adjust them.