Thomas Rolley 00:00
goals are completely useless.
I don't know about you.
But these statements came as a shock to me; I am reading this book here, atomic habits.
And James clear in this starts with a very interesting proposition.
And He basically says that despite what our society has often focused on and told us is the way to get stuff done, goals aren't exactly all that they're cracked up to be.
And instead, He says there's something way more important.
And what's gone on is that those people that have hit goals, people have assumed that the reason that they got there was because of their goals.
But He says no, unite their goals at all, not their goals.
It's their systems; it's their systems.
And He poses a very interesting question.
In fact, He says that Now for the interesting question, if you completely ignored your goals and focused only on your system, would you still succeed.
And He actually says, You know what, if your system is going to take you to that goal, then you can completely dismiss that goal.
And you will get that, that the outcome of the system when it's executed over and over, and particularly if it's improved upon, will get you to that target.
And He goes on to give four.
Thomas Rolley 01:35
thought problems with goals.
Problem number one, winners and losers have the same goals.
Winners and losers have the same goals.
This gets into the idea about, well, maybe it wasn't the goal at all, that whoever hit the goal and whoever didn't hit the goal had the same goal.
But those who hit it did something clearly different from those who had the goal but did not.
Problem number two, achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
This is a significant problem when you hit a target when that is the target, and you take it out.
And now on the next day, wake up, you're like, oh, man now.
Now.
Number three, goals restrict happiness, goals that literally restrict your happiness.
Now, why is that? Well, up until the point of hitting the goal, you're unhappy, then you're happy when you hit the goal, and then wake up the next day, and you're unhappy again.
I mean, this is fascinating to me; I'm like, well, we all making ourselves unhappy because somebody thought that goals were the most important thing.
And problem number four goals are at odds with long-term progress, that when you hit a goal, you kind of stop that it says, Hey, stop, stop, stop, stop.
So what are our goals good for? It would seem that they've got some serious problems compared to systems.
James's point here is, hey, if you actually want to get the goals achieved, do not focus on the goals at all, but rather focus on the system that gets you there.
And then, as you execute the system, even if you haven't reached the goal, you're still happy, you're still progressing, you're getting better.
And then when you do hit the goal, the system continues to be executed, and you go further beyond those goals.
And so you might wonder, well, what is the purpose of the goal at all? Because they do have one specific purpose, and that is to set the direction, set the course where are you going to go? You see if you understand systems, then you have the ability to go wherever you want.
And so you do need the goal to set the direction and say, hey, that's where I want to go.
That's the target.
But that is all that the goal is for once you've got the target, and you've set the direction.
Now the game becomes twofold.
Number one, create a system that's going to take you there.
And number two, execute the system.
And you will progress you will slowly but surely, over time, reach that target, go past that target get better and get better and get better.
And the focus should not be on the goal outside of a user to set the direction.
And once that is set, all of the focus should go on to the system, making the system better and making sure that the system gets executed.
If you have in a moment, you're like, Ah, maybe I've been focused on the wrong things.
Maybe the reason I'm not hitting my goals is not that the goals aren't valid.
No, those goals are setting your direction.
But where you've made a mistake, possibly where I've made a mistake.
I might well I'll just set the goal.
But in fact, it's not it's to focus on the system.
If you need some help with systems, if you'd like to know how they work, how to build them, how to execute them, how to make them easier to use them to not use head over systemio.dev, continue this book.
I like it.
1.5 million copies sold.
I think James knows a thing or two about writing good books and how to write them.
No doubt He has a system for that.
You can go and check him out over at James clear.
com.
If you need help with systems, head over systemio.dev.
See you tomorrow.
