Why You Need to Build Great Systems, Not Goals
Tags: Personal Development, Self Improvement, Self, Goals, Psychology

Why You Need to Build Great Systems, Not Goals

5 things to consider for long-term progress

Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash

For you to reach your desires and dreams — your unique version of success — the typical advice you’d get is to set meaningful goals. Whether that’s improving your fitness, stepping up a level in your field or industry, or dedicating more time to your relationships, you need goals.

And in fact, this is what I firmly believed for years. Goals are destinations, and we all need to have something to aim for, right?

It’s the same approach you and I use for everything.

Do you need to get your morning coffee? Make a goal to get out of bed and head into the kitchen.

Want to lift more weights in the gym? Set a goal to attend the gym more often and lift more weight.

Want to be a better writer (my goal)? Create a goal to write more often and improve over time.

I’ve set hundreds of significant goals during my life. I did reach a lot of them, but many of them I also didn’t. I didn’t like the consistency of this, but I wasn’t sure on how to correct and improve this.

But recently, I learned one of the most important things to consider about achieving what I wanted. A podcast show including Brian Moran, co-author of The 12 Week Year, highlighted that to get the big goals we want, we need to build systems around them.

One of my core values is that you and I should dedicate our time each day or week to self-reflection. Because being able to understand who we are today, to then take actionable steps to innovate and improve ourselves is one of the best things we can do. And the way to do that is through systems.

This fact made me realise to lead my goals with one thing. Not motivation. Not desire. Not even the reward at the end. The system I put in place for myself to achieve what I want.

It made so much sense.

Systems are objective-based. They aren’t influenced by how you feel each day.

They aren’t influenced by how you feel each day. Systems are results-focused. There are always reasons why you couldn’t reach your goal. But at the end of the day, you either completed it, or you didn’t.

There are always reasons why you couldn’t reach your goal. But at the end of the day, you either completed it, or you didn’t. Systems keep you going, whether you feel like it or not. Following a system is like a missile following a laser-guided target, if set correctly, you’ll get a result no matter what.

So, a question for you: If I asked you to set a goal, then completely forget about it, focusing only on building a system around it. For example, your goal is to squat 100 kilograms, but you ignore that goal and spend 100% of your thoughts and efforts on training every day. Do you think you’d reach that goal?

Of course you would!

Most people spend too much time on what’s at the end of the tunnel, not how to get through it. You’re then poorly prepared for the inevitable problems on the way, such as loss, defeat, criticism, fear, and knocks in confidence.

Systems create answers to those problems. And there are a few points you need to consider once you create your own.

Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

Set your standards.

Standards are what keep you active each day. It’s a daily minimum of something you do that you must follow no matter what. How to do that? Set a daily minimum of something you’ll want in the long term and stick to it no matter what. There’s nothing you’ll enjoy 24/7. So, you’ll have to pick something.

The problem with goal setting is that it makes you care only about the end. You end up looking at the success only and the gleaming triumph you’ll feel for reaching it.

You quickly forget about the hard work, smart decisions, resilience, and patience, to name a few, that allow your systems to be efficient and help you along the way.

I was like this. I set the goal to be a writer, but I felt so attracted to the idea of being an influential writer who engages with tens of thousands and makes a very healthy living off it. But I forgot about the critical steps of how I was going to get there.

It’s like jumping off a diving board and belly-flopping into the water because you didn’t learn how to enter it safely and effectively.

What you set can be as simple as ten push-ups or a one-mile walk by the end of the day. It needs to be small and easy at first. That’s how you form the habit. I use this with everyone I coach in fitness training.

Build the habits and systems in your mind to commit to a minimum amount of work each day. And you’ll eventually be doing it with minimal exertion. Once that starts to happen, then you can raise the bar.

Don’t fall victim to survivorship bias.

What is survivorship bias? Well, I’m glad you asked (you probably didn’t).

This one’s important. Goals have one unique disadvantage over systems. Imagine explaining your new goals to a friend, compared to your new systems. Which one do you think they’ll find more exciting?

One sounds more boring than the other, but that’s precisely it.

Survivorship bias makes you only value what you do see and ignore what you don’t.

It’s like the iceberg effect; you forget that an iceberg is humongous because around 80% of it is underwater. That’s survivorship bias; seeing surface-level results and thinking that’s all there is to it.

Think of celebrities or famous athletes. You see the money, the fame, the fact that they can wake up each day anywhere they want, with no clue about what to do, or they have an assistant tell them instead.

You then hear their advice on success, and it’s usually something cliché like “never give up” or “strive for your dreams”. But what you don’t see is the years they spent failing, doubting themselves and being ignored and criticised.

What you also don’t see, is the other 99% of people that had the same start as them but didn’t make it. You see Lewis Hamilton, for example, making his way from the bottom to the top of Formula 1, but you forget about the tens of thousands of kids who didn’t.

Goal success is more glamourous than systems, and that’s the problem. But it takes an effective system that nobody else can see to reach and exceed your goal in the first place.

Let the goal be and focus on what others don’t see because that’s what matters and makes the difference to your success. As James Clear once said, winners and losers have one thing in common: “they have the same goals”, not the same system.

Goals hold you back more than you might realise.

Focusing on the goal alone is very narrow-minded thinking. Say you want to write 100 articles a year — In fact, this is what I did — that equates to 25 articles every quarter (three months).

Now imagine you instead set yourself a standard to write one article a day at least. Without thinking about it, that’s already a minimum of 365 pieces per year. You could even do 25, 50, or even 100 articles each quarter because you’re not focused on hitting just 100 a year.

Goals can be limiting. They don’t beg the question “but what if I have more potential than this?” whereas systems are limitless. They don’t just have the end in mind; they look at improving yourself physically, mentally and spiritually too.

If your goal is to drink more water, but your system is drinking 2 litres minimum per day. Your system guarantees that not only do you reach your goal, but you now retain a healthy habit which improves your skin, energy levels, happiness and many other benefits.

Goals are great for clarity and having a clear vision of what you want, but systems guarantee how you’re going to get there.

Goals don’t tell you what to do next.

Why do fitness enthusiasts work so hard, for weeks, towards their goal of losing weight or building muscle, only to return to their original self once completed?

It’s is a common problem that many people struggle with as they sign up for fitness programs or workout classes to lose weight, only either give up or reach their goal and have no drive to carry on. It’s because they hit a “now what?” phase. They failed to build a system of useful habits that retained their behaviours without needing much effort.

The reason that systems are much more compelling is that they turn “now what?” into “now”.

“Now I will…”

“Now I can…”

“Now I should…”

Goals-focused people use motivation and rewards as their primary driver. In that mindset, you only picture the end that’s what excites you.

System-focused people use their processes as their primary source of fuel. With that, you’re now focusing on what you’re doing today. You know your actions today will give you that 1% minimum improvement because daily improvements add up and compound. You’re driven by the process and the challenges, not hitting the target once and leaving it there.

Goals tell you where to go. But systems tell you where to go, how to get there and what to do next.

Learn to love the process.

This point is my favourite because it’s the most important.

You and I need goals the same way we need a purpose in life. But we just use goals in the wrong way. They are not things to impress your friends, so it looks like you’ve got a lot coming for you, and they aren’t merely to make you feel like you’re doing something. They’re for one reason: clarity.

Systems are beautiful works of art. They shape you to become a powerful individual who lives by virtue and constant growth.

Don’t get me wrong; goals are useful in the short term. You don’t need a masterplan system to take a shower every morning. But for long-term results and consistent results in your life. Please invest in your systems.