Don’t Set Goals to succeed, Create Systems

Different perspectives can be approached to reach a desired level of success, and these perspectives, observed from various angles, can work for each one individually.

However there are some constants, methods or ways that have proved to be common denominators in the path to success, these include and are not limited to; positive mental attitude, positive image, creativity and many others, but among these the most important ones are consistency, persistence, skills and creativity. These are the ultimate recipes for luck. Luck does not happen if concerted efforts have not been designed to allow for it to happen, the environment, the stage, must be set in order for luck to appear.

Goals have been discussed as the right ways to enable people drive towards something, they allow you to have a target of what exactly you want to achieve and therefore allow you to put in place various methods, finances and resources that will allow you achieve those goals.

However the perspective of goal-setting has a weakness, the assumption is that before the set goal is achieved it means you have not yet succeeded. Goal-setting also makes you have a tunnel vision to life, it dictates your path and in the process your creativity might be limited since you only want to focus on achieving that one thing that you have set to achieve, it does not allow you to wander and discover the beauty of the things you have achieved on the journey of your life, in Goal-Setting, those things are nothing until you achieve that one goal.

Scott Adams, a serial Entrepreneur and Creator of the Dilbert comic, in his book How to Fail at almost everything and still Win Big tries to set a case for Systems instead of Goals. He defines Goals as ‘reach-it-and-be-done’ objectives. He provides case scenario examples;

-In the World of Dieting losing 20 pounds(Lbs) is a goal, but eating right is a system.

-In the realm of exercising, running a Marathon in under 4hrs is a Goal, but exercising daily, that’s a System

-In Business, making a million dollars is a Goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a System

Goals make you rigid and have the possibility of shutting out many opportunities in your life journey. They create a tunnel vision mindset in your journey and can easily bar your creative and innovative ability.

Systems on the other hand make it easy for you to easily adopt to new trends and changes. Systems  are habitual things that we do every day in our quest for a successful life. The Proverb ‘An apple day keep the doctor away’ is an encouragement for you to eat healthy everyday as a habit in order to maintain a healthy livelihood.

Goals are useful in narrow simplistic and predictable pursuits but Systems, Systems are flexible and they live you open to be curious, they allow you to adopt to new better ways  to do things, they allow you to try out things and adopt those that work and throw away those that do not work.

Scott Adams says, "If you study people who succeed, you will see that most of them follow systems not goals."

It is therefore clear that in order to achieve continuous stable success  that allows us to adopt to the ever changing world, we need to create systems rather than set goals. 

A System thinking approach to life is the best way to achieve success.

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