Don’t Waste Your Time Setting Goals – Instead, Learn To Develop Effective Systems

As humans, our lives are pretty much based on imagining a certain, desirable dream scenario and then moving towards it until we finally make it come true.

It’s called following our goals. It’s what makes us feel alive. It’s what gives us a certain direction in life. It’s what keeps us going. And it’s basically one of the most important reasons for our existence.

Setting goals and chasing our dreams are our main purpose here on Earth.

At least for the majority of people.

Naturally, for many years this is exactly how I approached things in life. In fact, this is what I was instructed to do.

 “Don’t stop until you get good grades”; “Do your best to get into your dream college”; “Try hard to find the job of your dreams”, “Force yourself to run the 20km marathon”, and whatnot.

But, as time passed I noticed that every time I reached the desired goal, something in me made me feel like I just gained, but at the same time lost something that was a big, valuable part of my life.

Eventually, I began to realize that my result had almost nothing to do with my desired goals and nearly everything to do with the systems I unconsciously made for myself.

And it brought me to a rather blunt conclusion.

Goals are for losers.

The smartest thing you can do to help yourself is to develop your own effective systems instead of chasing specific objectives.

“But, how can you say this?”

It’s simple.

If your goal is to lose weight, you’ll spend every moment of your life focusing on that one specific target until you reach that desired goal. That is if you reach it at all.

Once you finally achieve it, you’ll get to enjoy the perks of it, celebrate your persistence and determination and bathe in your glory.

But once those feelings start to fade away and you realize that the one thing you’ve worked hard for is now gone, your options will be “feeling empty and useless” or “setting a new goal and therefore reentering the cycle of a permanent risk of failure”.

You see, goal-oriented folks, exist in a dimension of continuous pre-success failure. The goal they’ve set is the only thing they’re focused on. It’s the only thing their lives revolve around. The pressure to make things right and avoid failure at all cost is so terrifying that they’re practically missing out on everything else in life.

System-oriented people, on the other hand, they focus on the big picture. Their main principles in life are based on their highly effective systems. Their whole lives, their actions, their behavior, their opportunities, their experiences, even their failures, they are all based on their systems.

In fact, to them, there is no such thing as failure. Every obstacle along the way is just a part of the journey. Another valuable lesson that needs to be mastered.

Let me make this even simpler for you. A goal is a desired objective in life that you either achieve it or don’t sometime in the future. But, a system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run.

Therefore, if you’re doing something every day, you’re following a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, then it is a goal.

Consistency is the main value that makes these two methods contradict each other.

Achieving a goal only changes your life at the moment. It restricts your happiness by lacking a long-term progress. The only purpose is to win the game. To reach the highest peak. To focus on one thing.

Systems, on the other hand, are what guide us through life. They show us that success is only possible if you join the never-ending cycle of improvement and continuous work. Systems show us that it’s not that important to win the game, as it is to actually continue playing it.

This is why it is essential to understand that we need to strive to create systems that will help us make our dreams reality and use our goals as a way of tracking our progress, instead of seeing them as a work-until-you’re-done situation.

Having a well- designed system is far more important than anything else. Committing to it is what makes the difference.