Why it's time to ditch setting goals for a better alternative

Every January, we kick off the calendar year with New Year’s Resolutions: lose 10 pounds, make smarter investments, make more money. Yet by February, we’ve returned to life as usual.

We blame ourselves for:

“I should work harder.”

“I should be more disciplined.”

“I should stop procrastinating.”

But what if we’re approaching this in the wrong way? What if goal setting itself is the problem?

For people who know me this is a very unusual statement for me to make. I’m currently reading James Clear book Atomic Habits, where he discusses making minute changes to everything you do to make significant steps forward.

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system, this is a lesson I have learned.

Bad habits repeat themselves not because you don’t want to change but because you have the wrong system for change. This is one of the core philosophies of Atomic Habits: You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

For many years I approached everything in my life by setting goals in areas of health, wealth, and relationships. I succeeded at a few, but I failed at a lot of them. I decided to try a different approach in 2020 by falling in love with systems.

I’m not saying goals are useless. However, I've found that goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.

Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the difference.