You Don't Need Better Goals, You Need Better Systems
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We’ve been wired to believe that to achieve better things in life, we need to set better goals.
And so we go ahead and set specific, timely, measurable goals such as the following:
I want to lose 30 pounds by May.
This year, I want to publish 100 blog posts.
This year, I’m going to read 24 books.
In the next 6 months, I will launch my YouTube channel and grow it to 1,000 subscribers.
These are all ambitious pursuits that can be measured by their outcome.
But the reality is this:
Our results have little to do with our goals. You can set the most measurable goals in place, and you can still fail to achieve them. Seriously—how often has that happened to you?
Here’s the thing:
Our results have everything to do with the systems we have in place to achieve those goals.
What’s the difference?
Goals are the targets you want to achieve while systems are the processes you put in place to help you achieve them.
If we further break it down:
Goals tell you where you want to go; they’re focused on tomorrow.
Systems tell you what you need to do every day to get there; they’re focused on today.
Bestselling author James Clear’s most famous quote is this:
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
And that’s why you don’t need better goals, you need better systems.
It was only when I understood this principle and began building productive processes to achieve the goals that I started to see swift advancements in my results.
Why Systems Are More Important Than Goals
The challenge with setting goals is that they remove us for the present and stretch us into the future. We end up exerting more energy on setting goals than we do on planning and creating systems that would facilitate their achievement.
So what exactly is a system?
If your goal is to lose 30 pounds by month X, then your system is how you build a lifestyle that makes it easy for you to commit to daily exercise and healthy eating.
If your goal is to write and publish 100 blog posts before the end of the year, then your system is how and when you brainstorm, write, edit and publish.
A system is designed to make it easy for you to regularly repeat the necessary tasks that will help accomplish your goals. It asks this simple question:
“How are you going to make it easy for you to arrive at your destination (your goal)?”
When looking at it this way, you come to realize that while goals are essential for setting direction, it’s in the level of your systems that you make progress through the journey.
Here are three reasons systems are more important than goals:
Goals are target-based; systems are skill-based. Systems allow you to build transferable skills that will pay you forward in the future. That’s because we expand and grow in the process of working toward what we want—not in the end result. Yet sometimes, despite our efforts, we might not be successful in achieving our targets (our goals), but that doesn’t take anything away from the consistent work we put in and the skills we gained from it.
Goals create momentary change; systems create life-long change. If year after year, your goal is to read one book per month but you only manage to do it for the first month of the year and then fail for the other eleven, then you’re left chasing the same outcome because you never changed the system behind it. In order to achieve better results, you must first address and fix the system that drives the negative results. As per James Clear’s words: “fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves.”
Goals delay happiness; systems don’t. This is perhaps my biggest revelation with systems. Goals create a mindset of “once I achieve my goal, I’ll be happy”, which then cultivates an “always-chasing” mentality. The problem with this goals-first mentality is that we end up delaying our happiness and associating it with the outcome of the results: “if I achieve my goal, I’ll be happy.” A system-first mentality shifts your attention to the journey—the process. You end up falling in love with progress and enjoying the growth you experience.
How to Build a Better System
The secret to building a great system is to focus on small consistent wins.
There are two keywords to highlight: small and consistent.
Do you want to lose 30 pounds by May? Eat two healthy meals [small] per day [consistent] and exercise for 30 minutes [small] every other day [consistent].
Do you want to publish 100 blog posts this year? Publish 2 articles per week [small] and block 5 writing sessions on your weekly calendar [consistent].
Do you want to read 24 books this year? Read one book every 2 weeks [small] and read for an hour every morning before you go to the office [consistent].
Small, consistent steps are the secret to creating big, sustainable changes.
With that said, here are the three steps to building a better system:
Identify and list all the tasks that need to be done.
Create a workflow for these tasks with specific deadlines.
Track your main habit to measure progress.
So let’s take writing as an example:
This year, writing is my “one thing”—my single most important priority and the one area in my life that I want to grow in. My intention is to be consistent and my goal is to publish 150+ articles before year-end. So here’s the system I’ve created for myself to put all three together:
Step 1: I identified and listed all the tasks that need to be done: brainstorming ideas, selecting 3 to 5 article topics per week, blocking time in my calendar 5 days a week to write and/or edit, and publishing 3x per week.
Step 2: I created a workflow:
I use Evernote to compile a list of article ideas I want to explore and divide them into categories: entrepreneurship, self-development, mindset…
I use Evernote to create a “pipeline” of what article topics I will be working on in a given week.
I blocked 2 hours per day on my calendar, 5 days a week to sit down, write and/or edit.
All the above help me abide by the deadline of publishing at least 3x per week (across all blogging platforms).
Step 3: I track my main habit. Notice how I didn’t say “tasks”. That’s because I don’t want to overcomplicate my life. The entire idea behind building a system is to make it easy for me to reach my goals; so I only track the habit of writing. Every day I successfully follow-through and write, I mark an X on my habit tracker.
Here’s a little secret: Despite my extravagant system, I don’t end up writing every day. Hey—it’s normal. That’s what makes me human. The point is to try and not break the chain of X’s.
On this page, you’ll find a “Habit Tracker” template I put together for you to download and start tracking the habits you want to change.
This entire process isn’t very time-consuming. You only need to do step 1 once. Step 2 is always a work-in-progress—you learn what works for you as you apply it, which makes it easy and flexible to change. And I find step 3 to be the most important because it helps you visualize the progress you’re making.
Follow these steps to build a better system for yourself that would help you build better habits, develop better skills and reach your goals in the process of doing so.