JAMES Clear is a New York Times bestselling author best known for Atomic Habits, a practical guide that shows how tiny changes compound into meaningful results. In the book’s opening chapter, he tells the story of British Cycling: a team whose fortunes turned after someone decided to stop searching for one dramatic fix and, instead, to improve dozens of small habits over time.
David Goggins, the author of Can’t Hurt Me offers a different, tougher tone: his memoir describes repeated failures, brutal self-tests and relentless habit work that forged extraordinary mental and physical resilience. These two very different writers share one key idea: they regularly evaluated what was working in their lives, discarded what wasn’t and deliberately acted on the findings.
In this article I invite you to reflect on what you already know. Take a clear-eyed look at your routines and ambitions and ask whether the habits you’re attempting to form are actually moving you towards your goals. As highlighted in my previous piece, winners are not just those who persist blindly, they’re the ones who recognise when a strategy isn’t working and have the courage to change it. Reflection isn’t giving up; it’s recalibration.
Below are four practical exercises to help you to analyse whether you are heading in the right direction. Don’t rush them, reflection benefits from honesty and time. Work through each step and record your answers; the insight you gain will be far more valuable than any other list of tips.
Identify whether a problem exists
Start with the obvious: is there a problem that deserves your attention? Treat this like peeling an onion, the first layer is simply acknowledging presence or absence. Be specific. Instead of “I’m not productive,” try “I miss my study targets three days a week” or “I can’t run 5km without stopping.” Naming the problem sharply keeps the next steps focused.
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Measure growth (or stagnation)
Growth is often incremental and can easily be missed day to day. Adopt a Kaizen mind-set: look for consistent small improvements rather than dramatic leaps. Set measurable indicators ie time spent studying, reps completed, pages written, weight lifted, errors reduced and track them over a meaningful period (two to eight weeks). If your numbers trend upward, you’re improving. If they’re flat or declining, you’ve found a clear signal that something needs to change. Remember: a 1% daily improvement compounds; tiny gains that feel invisible now will become visible over time if you keep honest records.
Diagnose the causes
Once you’ve confirmed a problem or a plateau, don’t rush to conclusions. Systematically diagnose why progress has stalled. Consider four categories:
Inputs: Are you dedicating sufficient time and the right kind of effort?
Systems: Are your routines and environment optimised?
Skills: Do you lack a specific skill that creates a bottleneck?
Mind-set and recovery: Are limiting beliefs, stress or poor recovery sabotaging you?
For each category, write down 2–3 concrete hypotheses, then test those hypotheses for a short, defined period, experiment deliberately rather than guessing.
Design a transformative loop
With causes diagnosed, build a simple feedback loop to change course. A robust transformative loop has three parts:
Intervention: Choose one focused change, ideally no more than one or two at a time. Examples: adopt a two-minute daily review of goals.
Implementation plan: Specify when, where and how you’ll do it. Make the habit obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying (the practical advice from habit science).
Measurement + review cadence: Decide how you’ll measure success and when you’ll review. Test the change for a set period (eg, 14 days). At the end, compare the metrics you recorded earlier and ask: did this intervention move the needle? If yes, keep it and consider scaling. If not, adjust or abandon it.
The point is to iterate quickly and mercilessly, small experiments, meaningful data and repeated refinement.
Reflection is not a passive exercise, it’s a disciplined practice of observation, measurement, diagnosis and iterative change. James Clear and David Goggins model two ends of the same spectrum: careful systems thinking and relentless self-audit. You can use the four exercises above as a guide to spot whether your current habits are serving your goals, diagnose why they may not be, and run focused experiments that move you forward. Over time those small, honest adjustments will add up to real transformation.
If you commit to looking closely, measuring fairly and acting decisively, you’ll find that progress is not accidental, it’s engineered.