GoalieMoving Beyond Outcomes
Inspired by Atomic Habits, Goalie helps you move beyond just chasing outcomes to building the identity you want.
Samuel Shingler • July 9, 2026
James Clear’s Atomic Habits is an enormously popular book and contains many great nuggets of information to help people live more of the life that they want.
As per the title, the main focus is on developing habits, however a lot of what James talks about is also applicable to projects, goals and tasks, and productivity in general.
In this article I want to focus on one of his key ideas, which is that habits can shape a person’s identity as much as one’s identity shapes habits. Therefore, by focusing on the person you want to become you can more effectively achieve the things you want to.
Why Who You Want to Become Matters
In Atomic Habits James made an astute observation that the most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become. He gives an example of running a marathon, James proposes that it’s less about actually running the marathon and more about the identity you want as a person. Do you want to be seen as a runner, or perhaps an athletic and sporty person? Then by running and training for the marathon you are voting with your feet for the type of person you want to be. James asserts that by framing your actual goal around what identity you want, it makes it easier to do actions that contribute to that identity. If you want to be a runner then it’s easier to motivate yourself to run. If you want to be a reader it’s easier to spend time reading. And if you want to be a musician then you might find it comes more naturally to sit down and practice your instrument.
When I read that for the first time I thought it was a really neat way of looking at things. I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing stuff because of external factors (parents, society, etc.) rather than intrinsic wants and dreams. I also think it’s a really powerful way to frame what is essentially a positive feedback loop when you work towards the identity you want - each action moves you closer to the identity you want and the more you feel that identity the easier it is to take those actions.
Take some serious time to think about what sort of person you want to be. It’s an interesting exercise to do, and you’ll probably find there’s gaps between what you want to be and where you are at the moment. Think about the actions you could take that would help close those gaps.
Identity-Based Goal Tracking in Goalie
If I think about what identity I want there’s a few things that come to mind
- Business owner
- Software developer
- Hiker
- Sporty / Footballer
- Gamer
- Reader
In my Goalie account I have a project called “Goalie” (for tracking goals related to developing Goalie) and a project called “Personal” (for tracking things I want to achieve outside of working on Goalie). Looking at the identities I listed they correspond roughly to the timelines and projects I have created in Goalie. I can then view breakdowns of the completed goal stats to see where I’ve been putting the most effort. I can use this view to track my progress, as an example you see that Goalie has been by far my biggest endeavour of late and it’s very satisfying to look back and see the amount of work I’ve put in. In particular you can see where Goalie really starts to become a tool that stands in it’s own right and I migrate away from other productivity apps. Obviously completed goals is an imperfect metric, I probably create more goals for Goalie and also break them down more compared to my personal goals. That being said the key is to see that I’m making progress on all my goals, no matter how small, which helps feed that positive feedback loop I mentioned earlier.
I think it’s worth stressing at this point that your identity doesn’t have to be fixed. As we all progress through life we learn and experience new things that may take us on a new course. We should continuously review our beliefs and what we want from life. Don’t feel constrained by decisions you made in the past.
If any of this resonates, give Goalie a go. Think of what you want from your life, set up a project, break it down into a timeline or two, and see what a year of small votes can add up to.