If you are passionate about setting goals, you have made a huge mistake

We all have what we want to achieve in life - having a better body, successful business, happy family, writing best-seller books, becoming a good home enemies and countless other beautiful things.

Mostly, the way to achieve these things often starts with setting specific and achievable goals. At least, this is the way I started my life in the past. I aim to attend classes, lose weight and meet important customers.

However, gradually, I realized that when it comes to achieving something and taking real steps in what you want, there is a much more wonderful way to do it, not just a section. pepper.

The clear difference between the goal and the system

What makes the difference between goals and systems ?

1. If you are a coach , your goal is to win the championship . Your system is the team members need to practice every day.
2. If you are a writer , your goal is to write a book . Your system is a writing plan that you will follow every day, every week.
3. If you are an athlete , your goal is to win the marathon . Your system is a continuous training plan every month.
4. If you are a startup , your goal is to build a $ 1 million company . Your system is marketing and sales.

And now, this is the real question:

If you completely ignore the goals and focus solely on the system, will you achieve results?

For example, if you are a basketball coach, you skip the goal of achieving the championship and only focus on what your team practices every day, will you achieve your goal?

I think it is.

For example, I only calculated the total number of words for the articles I wrote this year. In the last 12 months, I have written more than 115,000 words. An average book of 50,000 to 60,000 words so this year, I have enough time to complete both books.

All of this is amazing because I never set a goal for writing. I do not measure my progress with a few initial standards. I have never set up a word count target for any particular lesson. I never said, "This year, I want to write these two books."

What I have focused on is writing a newspaper every Monday and Thursday. And after sticking to that plan for about 11 months, my results were 115,000 words. I focus on the system and the work process. Finally, I get the same (perhaps better) result.

Let me tell you 3 reasons why you should focus on the system instead of the goal:

1. The goal of reducing your current happiness

When you're working toward your goals, you're essentially saying, "I'm still not good enough, but I'm good when I reach my goal."

The problem with this mindset is that you are telling yourself that always saying "no" to success and happiness until the next milestone is achieved."Once I achieve my goal, then I will be happy. Once I reach my goal, then I will succeed."

SOLUTION: Be whole-hearted with the process, not the goal.

Choosing to set goals will create a huge burden for your shoulders. Can you imagine what it would be like if I set a goal to write two books a year? Just writing this sentence on paper makes me feel overwhelmed!

However, we are constantly doing this. We embrace unnecessary stresses when we want to lose weight or succeed in business or write a big public novel. Instead, you can maintain simplicity and reduce stress by focusing on what you're doing daily and sticking to the plan. Don't worry about big goals or can change your life.

When focusing on reality instead of results, you can both enjoy the present moment and improve the things you are doing everyday.

2. Surprisingly, the goal often conflicts with long-term development

You may think that goals will help you maintain motivation in the long run but this is not always true.

Consider a few practice activities for a half-marathon. Many people will work hard for several consecutive months but as soon as they finish the race, they stop practicing. Their goal is to conquer that 21km range and now, they have completed. So that goal no longer motivates them. When all your best efforts are focused on a specific goal, what else will push you further after you've achieved it?

This can create a kind of effect called "yo-yo effect" - an effect that refers to those who do not have a breakthrough in their work, always in a vicious circle despite their efforts. This rotation will obviously be very difficult to help you grow in the long term.

SOLUTION: Please remove the desire to achieve immediate results.

Last week, I started going to the gym and just switched to the clean and jerks exercise (a form of weight training). When I did that, I felt a slight pain in my leg, not too painful or hurt, and it was just a sign of fatigue at the end of the practice period. In about one to two minutes, I thought about practicing the last set. After that, I reminded myself that I had planned to do this all my life and decided to end the training session that day.

In the above situation, a psychological goal that serves as a basis will tell you to end the practice and reach the goal. Finally, if you've set your goals and haven't achieved them, you'll have a feeling that it's a failure.

However, with the psychological state taking the system as a basis , I didn't feel anxious as I moved forward. This type of thinking has never caused me to be constrained by a specific number, it is keeping track of the process and not missing any training.

Certainly, I know that if I never miss a training session, I will raise weight weights in the long term. And that's why the system is more valuable than the goal.Goals are short-term results. The system is a long-term process. In the end, the process will always win.

3. The goal suggests that you can control everything you can't control

You cannot predict the future (I know, it is very shocking).

However, each time we set goals, we try to do it again. We plan on where we will be and when we will be there. We try to predict how quickly we can go despite not knowing what situations or circumstances might appear on that process.

OPTIONS: Build Feedback Loop feedbacks.

On every Friday, I spend 15 minutes filling out a small data sheet with the most important parameters in the company. For example, in a column, I calculate the conversion rate (% of website visitors sign up for free emails from me every week). I rarely thought it was a number but checking this column every week gave me a feedback loop that would tell me if I did it right. As the numbers go down, I know that I need to focus more on improving the quality of traffic for my website.

Feedback rings are important for building good systems because they allow you to track different things without feeling pressured to predict what will happen to all those parts. . Forget about predicting the future and building a system that can signal that you need to make adjustments.

Take "love" for the system

None of the above confirms that the goal is not useful. However, I find that the goal is useful for planning processes and systems that are useful for implementing those processes.

Goals can provide methods and even push you forward in the short term. However, in the end, a well-designed system will always win. Having a new system is important and commitment to follow the process will help you make a difference.