Okay, so “the system” is not something people are generally groovy about, now that I think about it, but I came across this article by James Clear from December 2013 that I shared more than a decade ago, pre-blog. What with the new year approaching, he was counseling against setting goals and instead establishing systems that would become habits. If this sounds familiar, or in fact he does, that’s because five years later, he published a now bestseller, Atomic Habits, which echoes and expands on the article in myriad ways.
Now, I’m a big fan of processes and process improvements, so his approach makes sense on the one hand, but as with all bestselling self-improvement tomes, you can easily find detractors. One of the main threads of critique appears to be focusing on the system to the exclusion of goals.
Goals are good. Goals can articulate a vision, a path forward, and a reason to establish a system in the first place. They can also be good for improving a system. Many a project I’ve worked on has a goal of improving processes. Regarding the article, I don’t think Clear is ignoring goals, he’s saying the goals alone, and goals as people typically set goals, haven’t produced the results said goals aspire to achieve. Habits and systems do.
But what if you can’t get away from setting goals? Or you don’t want to? In that case, I don’t think you abandon systems and habits. In fact, finding a habit to support the goal might be key to achieving the goal… and if that seems impossible, you may need smaller goals. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with breaking down your goals. Breaking down work to a manageable, but not ridiculously fiddly level, is key to project planning, for instance. And on for personal improvement (or just establishing personal routines to get through the day in these happy-go-lucky times), I can think of so many people who advocate making smaller goals that you build upon.
The first time I remember this being brought home to me was a talk by Reid Henri Lewis, whose work in re-enacting an expedition of 17th century French explorer La Salle is worth a post or two alone. However, a large portion of his talk involved how to tackle daunting goals by breaking things down into manageable goals and steps, such as, say, recreating a 3,300-mile journey using 17th century gear and techniques or, you know, things you might want to do here and now. (Considering this talk was last century, you can tell it made an impression).
For more recent, and link-able, examples, some folks might remember Admiral William McRaven’s commencement speech where he stressed the value of just starting by making your bed. (the whole speech is worthwhile, though not all immediately applicable to the topic at hand). To get really specific, and to meld the setting of goals with figuring out systems for said goals, you may want to check out videos by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who through his life has had some very ambitious goals, but also seems to be able to break it down into day-by-day steps… and he’s still at it.
So there it is. What systems are you trying to put in place for 2025? What goals are you trying to achieve? And if you’re still scratching your head about the film reference above, it’s a good one, though it’s not a system you want to emulate.