Goals are meaningless, build a system instead!
Habel Abraham — Earlier today, I decided to read a book based on the topic that caught my attention in recent days. I know that I am late to the party but here I am reading “Atomic Habits”, a masterpiece by James Clear. By the time of writing, I have completed the first chapter which talking about the fundamentals about building good habits.
James Clear makes it clear (nice~), that habits could be a double-edged sword. It depends on the substance of that habit. For example, if you have habits which bring negatives to your life, such as a habit to be stressful all day long, to have negative thoughts or even a habit of failing to control your outrage. However, I will not examine the whole chapter today. There is an unpopular argument about meaningless goals.
Prevalent wisdom would say that “set goals on everything you do!”. The intention was clear to make us heading in the right direction and gain what we wish. However, James Clear suggest that it will be wiser if we build a system instead of goals. Before we dive into a deeper discussion, I would like to identify the discrepancy of goals and systems with an example.
- If you’re a student and your goal is to pass the test then enroll to the university, your system is deliberate practice, spaced repetition, and peer group review.
- If you’re an athlete and your goal is a gold medal, your system is weekday training plus additional weekend session.
Now, you know ;)
I have mentioned that James Clear made an unpopular argument in this chapter. The aforementioned argument is if you ignore goals completely and focus only on your system, you would succeed anyway.
Sounds odd, right?
The following bullet list is the explanation towards his argument that I found really beneficial.
- WINNERS AND LOSERS HAVE THE SAME GOALS
This one is clear enough. There is no further explanation to make you understand this reason. Both winner and loser have the same goals. If we take an example, Usain Bolt and the other runners have the same goals, to be the first in that race.
What differentiates them is the system Bolt’s has is more effective and proved to be more efficient compared to his competitors. A system that Bolt’s has was the reason why he got the gold medal and the others weren’t.
2. ACHIEVING A GOAL IS ONLY A MOMENTARY CHANGE
I will not give an explanation that James Clear gave in this passage. Let me take you into a certain case. Let’s imagine that you are a musician. You set your goal to have one of your songs be the best song of the year (IDK, maybe Grammys or else :D).
If you put your goal as the most important thing and you’re devoted to your goal, then you successfully achieved your goal. But then, after the hit, you start to make meaningless music. The music that doesn’t represent the Grammys you had. You will certainly out of fame.
The thing about building a system is you can MAINTAIN the level you once reached to have sustainable success in the future.
3. GOALS RESTRICT YOUR HAPPINESS
This is a true story. For the past few years, I would proudly say that I am a goal-oriented person. It pushed me harder to achieve the goals that I’ve set.
However, the downside of being a goal-oriented person is that it affects your happiness once you’re unable to meet the standards you’ve set. Moreover, goals create an “either-or” conflict.
Basically, either you successfully achieve your goal or you fail and you’re a disappointment.
4. GOALS ARE AT ODDS WITH LONG-TERM PROGRESS
I will not give my own explanation here. This is a quote from the passage.
“When all of your hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward after you achieve it? This is why many people find themselves reverting to their old habits after accomplishing a goal.”
Having a goal is necessary to keep up the focus on track but it is better if we also build a system which keeps us up which led into good habits that bring lots of benefit in our life. That’s all from me today, hope you find this post beneficial per usual, see you next time!
Reference:
Clear, James. 2018. “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones." An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.