Don’t set goals, build systems. Systems are the stress-reduced path to the success you crave.
If you want a problem solved in the real world, not just on paper, you have to have a system for executing on it.
If a framework is your plan on how to spend time, energy, attention and money to achieve an outcome, your system is what ensures you follow through.
Here’s a list of properties for a great system:
• Notifications: Does the system automatically capture the appropriate amount of your time, energy, attention and money? (calendar blocks, alerts, reminders)
• Feedback: Do you have a way to assess performance and tweak the system? For example checking for and clearing out bottlenecks? (reflection checkpoints, performance metric)
• Scaleability: Can the system increase output/impact without investing a significant amount of additional time, energy, attention and money? Is there a built-in flywheel that makes the system function more effectively over time? (automation)
One thing you don’t want in your system is goals.
That might seem kind of crazy at first. When you were young, adults probably told you to “shoot for the moon and land amongst the stars”.
But Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoons, has been popularizing the idea that Systems are greater than Goals, and I whole heartedly agree. How many times have you achieved a major goal in life only to have the primary emotion be relief? Or a momentary spike in happiness followed by a panicked search for the next thing to latch on to?
Goal-setters stress themselves out when they don’t hit their expectations for themselves, and they put an artificial cap on their progress when they do achieve their goals.
Systems thinkers operate like this:
To achieve anything in life I need to put in the work.
Instead of focusing on what I may or may not achieve, I will focus on doing the work.
The outcomes can fall where they may.
If we fall in love with the journey (aka. the system), success doesn’t need to be stressful.
This post was created with Typeshare