The Simple Guide To Building Habits, Setting Goals And Making Adjustments

At the time of writing, we are living through the COVID-19 pandemic: supermarkets have transformed into battlefields, shaking hands is considered deeply offensive and finding toilet paper is rarer than a lecture without at least one completely off-topic question.

Working and studying from home is now expected (and in some cases, required) and our lives have, for the most part, been turned upside down.

Many law schools have shifted to “online distance learning” which, in some cases, have left students without consistent support from tutors and lecturers. Now that students don’t have to attend in person, some students have started to feel disconnected from their learning and less accountable. It’s much easier to brush off questions on a video conference call than face-to-face.

If you want to achieve good grades, then being responsible for your own actions and imposing self-discipline is crucial. Now that some of the institutionally imposed discipline has been relaxed, it is important to take ownership of your own learning. Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting a semester (or whole year) of your degree.

The problem for many students right now is that it’s difficult to start studying or to sit down and study regularly. This suggests that you need to rethink your goals and routines and make the necessary adjustments to take advantage of these changes in circumstances.

This Article will help you to set appropriate goals and build habits to achieve your goals. In doing this, it aims to provide you with a framework to use the next time your life changes dramatically.

If you haven’t already, we recommend that you read our Simple Guide To Self-Motivated Study as a starting point, before diving in to the below.

Key Points

1.   Goals provide us with direction, orient us and give us something to aim at. For goals to be useful they need to be realistic, specific and appropriately defined.

2.   Good habits are an effective tool to optimise your days. They give you the best chance of following your plans and achieving your goals. 

Setting Goals

“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.” – Jordan Peterson in “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos”

Goals are important. They provide us with direction and give us something to work towards. Goals orient us and give us something to aim at. Without goals, you may find that you don’t know why you’re doing something. It’s no wonder that you wake up late and put off studying as much as you do – you haven’t set the right study-related goals.

In my first years of university, I didn’t think to set goals. I would turn up to class (sometimes) and study when I felt like it (rarely). Then, I was surprised when my grades weren’t very good. I would promise myself that I would be more motivated next time. This motivation would last about a week and then would die off. I fluked some assignments and exams so my academic transcript looks better than it should, but my results were inconsistent. I didn’t have a process. If I felt like studying, I would. But most of my time was spent doing everything except homework.

This continued until I became sick of my own laziness and decided to set study goals for myself. I remember listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast and learned that you are more likely to follow through with goals if you have some “skin in the game”. So, I made a bet with a friend (let’s call him Pablo) that I would get straight distinctions in the next semester. If I failed, I would pay him $250. I was on a McDonald’s wage at the time so this was a significant amount of money. Perhaps more importantly, because Pablo was aware of my goal, if I failed to achieve it then it would’ve been a huge blow to my ego.

All of a sudden, I was “motivated” to study. I had something to work towards and so I started to think about how I would achieve the goal. I realised the time I was setting aside to study was insufficient and that I needed to start thinking about how I approached university.

For the first time, I wasn’t just wandering aimlessly. I had a goal and I wanted to achieve it. The challenge motivated me and my competitive nature wouldn’t let me “lose” to Pablo.

In hindsight, my goal was perfectly crafted (by accident). It was hard enough to challenge me, but not so hard that it was impossible. It’s important to set goals that are challenging, yet achievable. You need to set your goals with you as the reference point.

Don’t worry about what grades your classmates receive or what your parents consider to be good grades. If your goal is unrealistic, then as soon as you realise it’s impossible, you will stop trying to achieve it. Then, there’s a good chance you’ll be worse off than when you started!

It is also important to set specific goals, so you know what you are aiming at. These could be SMART goals (learn more here). Otherwise, think about setting goals that are as clear as possible.  

Let me explain this further. Grab a pen and paper (or open a new word document) and follow Simple steps below:

1. Formulate your goal.

Example: for the sake of the exercise, let’s assume that the goal is to achieve good grades this semester.

2. Define your goal.

Example: define what “good” means to you. This could mean passing all of this semester’s subjects or achieving high distinctions – it’s entirely dependent on where you are currently and what you’re capable of achieving. Ask yourself: what grades do I want to achieve for each subject?

3. Deconstruct your goal.

Strategic thinking: how will I achieve this goal?

Example: think about how you will achieve these grades. This is where you can use our Semester Planning Article to analyse each subject and identify the assessments you need to complete. Ask yourself, what grades do I need for each assessment in each subject to achieve my goal?

Tactical thinking: what do I need to do each week to achieve this goal?

Example: think about what it will take to achieve those grades in the assessments. This is where our Weekly Planning Article comes into play. Use this to effectively plan your weeks so you can achieve the desired grades.

Operational thinking: what do I need to do each day to achieve this goal?

Example: think about your daily study routines and consider whether these will help you to do the work required each week so you can achieve the grades in your assessments so you can achieve the overall subject grade.

To summarise, your goal must be realistic and appropriately defined. If your goal is unrealistic, you will give up, and won’t achieve it. If your goal is too broad, it won’t provide you with something clear to aim at. Put money on the line for extra motivation.

Building Habits 

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

Now that you have something to aim at (your goal) and you have thought about how you will reach that goal in a period of time (your plan), you need to optimise your days to give you the best chance of achieving that goal. One way to do that is to build habits that help you to work the way you want to, and ultimately achieve your goals.

A habit is a routine or behaviour that you repeat regularly, and which occurs subconsciously.  Habit building is about creating automatic responses to situations, so you don’t need to fall back on motivation or willpower.

For all of the people studying from home, getting into the habit of studying every day will help with achieving most of your study goals. This should be the primary habit you work towards creating.

The best way to make studying every day a habit is to create and religiously follow a pre-study routine. That way, you associate studying with the things you do before it, and will train yourself to get yourself in the right headspace to begin.

If studying in the morning (as our loyal supporters will know we always recommend you do), then it is important to design a morning routine that will set you up for study. When you wake up, it’s unlikely you will go from your bed to your desk and begin studying immediately. There are things you will do in between that time. So, it is important to choose what those tasks are so you. If you don’t consciously choose, then you will probably waste time and procrastinate on days that you don’t feel like studying – which is the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve.

Here is an example morning routine that you could adopt (as described in our How To Study From Home Article).

1. Wake up at 7:30;
2. Journal for 10-15 minutes;
3. Home workout for 30-45 minutes;
4. Shower (hot or cold);
5. Breakfast;
6. Begin studying.

But what if you work in the mornings or have other commitments that mean you can only study at night? That’s no excuse I’m afraid – you can still build an effective daily pre-study routine. Assuming you work 9am – 5pm, here’s another example:  

1. Commute from work to home (use this time to decompress – listen to a comedy podcast, meditate or watch some Netflix);
2. Dinner;
3. 20-30 minute exercise routine (walk the dog, kettlebell swings, or yoga);
4. Begin studying.

Whatever pre-study routine you are trying to build, you should also try to avoid social media as much as possible during that time (yes, even our Instagram page). Social media is a time trap and, without limits, it can creep in and destroy your pre-study routine.

“Greasing the Groove” and “Habit Stacking”

For those still having trouble building pre-study routines, here are a couple of concepts you should try applying.

First, “greasing the groove” – this concept was created by Pavel Tsatsouline, a former Soviet Special Forces strength instructor and the man responsible for popularising the kettlebell in the West. He coined a strength training concept called “greasing the groove”, which requires you to perform high-quality repetitions of a particular exercise, multiple times throughout the day. This enables you to practice the exercise with a focus on quality and, over time, is a great way to build strength because you are consistently training (rather than training to failure, with poor technique, and irregularly).

Second, “habit stacking”, as coined by James Clear in his book, “Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results”. This concept provides that when trying to form a new habit, you can “stack it” with other habits. The formula is: “After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].” An example is, “after I [take off my work clothes], I will [put on my gym clothes].”

Let’s discuss the above two concepts with reference to your pre-study routine.

Assume that, for example, you want to complete the required readings each week. Before you do this, you should always identify the 20% of material that will provide for 80% comprehension (because there is no way we can advise you to read everything when we definitely didn’t).

Here’s how you would then create a case-reading routine by applying the above two concepts:

1. Deconstruct the 20% into small chunks. For example, if you have 7 cases to read, then you can commit to reading 1 per session. This could take as little as 5 minutes (click here for our guide on How To Read A Legal Case In Under 5 Minutes). If they are longer cases, you could read 1 judgment per session. The trick is to break your work down into the smallest pieces possible, and “grease the groove” by completing one small piece at a time.
2. Use “habit-stacking” to undertake your reading sessions after other habits that you already do each day. For example, when you sit down with your morning coffee, read one case. Or, after you eat lunch, read one case.

Whatever task you apply these concepts to, the aim is to build the habit of completing the task on a consistent basis, with a focus on the quality (and not necessary the length) of your study.

To summarise, habit building is about creating automatic responses to situations, so you don’t need to fall back on motivation or willpower. The automatic things that you do before studying will create direction and routine in your life, which will make it infinitely easier to commence studying and have an effective study session. If you have trouble creating habits, try applying “greasing the groove” and “habit stacking”.

We hope that this Simple advice will help you set goals, build habits and excel in your studies during this tough period. For a regular dose of Simple Law guidance and advice, follow us on Instagram to join our growing community of like-minded individuals.