How To Manifest Successful Goal-Forming Habits? Ashdin Doctor Advices

In today's high-stress life, everyone seems to be chasing a deadline or, worse, staring burnout in the face. If only we could manage our work and life better and up our productivity at the same time. But how? There are just twenty-hours in a day after all, and aren't we all busy enough anyway? What is the trick to getting stuff done while keeping anxiety at bay?

The Habit Coach™ Ashdin Doctor is here to address these concerns. With his simple, fuss-free habits that are easy to integrate into our daily lives, Ashdin provides a roadmap to transform our attitude to work and productivity. Each habit that he proposes mindfulness, or tricks to improve time management-can be seamlessly added to our routines, making the path to productivity smooth and stress-free. The exercises that accompany each chapter help put each idea into practice.

Based on his award-winning podcast The Habit Coach™, Small Actions, Big Results offers a sure-shot way to unlock your productivity, supercharge yourself and achieve your goals.

Here's an excerpt from Small Actions, Big Results

Among the gods and goddesses that Hindus pray to is goddess Lakshmi. While we think of her as the goddess of wealth, and the Hindus especially pray to her on the day of Diwali, here’s a fun fact: the name Lakshmi was most likely derived from the word lakS, which means to perceive or observe. This, of course, is the word that transforms into ‘lakshya’, the Hindi word for aim or goal.

So, goddess Lakshmi brings you not money but your lakshyas or goals.

I realised this connection when I was attending a puja for Maa Lakshmi. During the puja, everyone was focusing on money. As part of the puja, we draw feet at the entrance. These feet, pointing inwards, are said to symbolise goddess Lakshmi entering the house.

Everyone at the puja was singing along to ‘Mere ghar aao Lakshmi Maa’, which translates to ‘Come to my home, Mother Lakshmi.’

This is when the habit coach in me woke up. I realised that if we don’t have a clear goal or lakshya, what will Lakshmi Maa come to our home and do? If she is the bringer of goals, what goal of yours will she bless?

Having been a habit coach long enough, I know most people have no clear goals. Most people have vague goals, like ‘I want lots of money’ or ‘I want to live next to a beach’ or ‘I want a hot boyfriend/girlfriend’.

These statements are meaningless. What is ‘a lot of money’? Is it a hundred dollars, 100 million dollars or 100 billion dollars? You can live next to the beach in a one-bedroom apartment, in a villa or homeless on a bench next to the beach.

We often pray for things we are unclear about and then wonder why they do not become a reality. The reason is that we do not know what we truly want.

So let’s do some goal-setting today. Get a paper and pen and answer the following questions. You may have multiple goals for different aspects of your life and that is fine. For now, choose just one thing that you want to accomplish and write it down mentioning the following details.

What do you want to achieve? Give as much detail as possible. 

Quantify it. Put a number to your goal; don’t leave it abstract. 

By when do you want to achieve it? Put a deadline to your goal. 

What is the emotion associated with achieving your goal? Is it happiness, excitement, sense of achievement?

So your goal might look like this: I am so excited to stay in my white-coloured five-bedroom pool villa by the beach in Miami by May 2027.

I know this will be very hard for you to do, especially if this is your first time setting a goal like this. It takes a lot of patience and understanding. You will really need to sit with your goals and spend time with them to gain clarity.

I suggest thinking about them first thing in the morning after you wake up.

Once you have your goals think about what you will need to
achieve these goals:

The resources: money, time, land and so on.

People who can help you achieve them.

Skills you will need; for example, negotiation skills.

The next thing I want you to do is to make a plan or a strategy for achieving these goals. What are the steps you need to take to get there? For example, I need to earn X amount of money to be able to buy this home. I need to learn four new skills to be able to charge more money. I need to invest this money in XYZ.

Then start taking the first steps towards these goals. Start acting on the goals. Create momentum towards them. It is this clarity of action that will bring you the best results.

So your super simple habit of achieving anything starts by having a clear goal for yourself. You can have twenty goals for twenty different aspects of your life–health, work, relationships, etc. Once you have clear goals, identify what you will need to achieve them. And then make a clear plan to accomplish them.

I can guarantee that the difference between people who achieve things in life and those who do not can be gauged by the clarity of their goals.

And only once you have finished the above steps and started taking action should you start praying.

Extracted with permission from Small Actions, Big Results by Ashdin Doctor published by Westland, an imprint of Westland Books.