If you’re like most people, you’ve probably set plenty of goals in your life. Lose 20 pounds. Get a promotion. Save 10,000 bucks. Maybe you’ve even achieved some of those goals through sheer willpower and determination. But for every goal accomplished, how many have fallen by the wayside? How many New Year’s resolutions were broken by February?

The problem with goals is that they are an outcome-based way of thinking. You set your sights on some future achievement, and then summon up massive amounts of energy and motivation to try to bring that vision into reality. But sustaining that “go-go-go” intensity is incredibly difficult in our constantly distracted world. Life gets in the way, obstacles arise, your energy and enthusiasm inevitably wane.

That’s why I believe having systems is better than setting goals. Systems are process-based rather than outcome-based. They are the daily routines, habits, and practices that ultimately determine what results you get. Building effective systems means focusing on the incremental inputs rather than being overly attached to a particular endgame.

Why is a systems-based approach superior? The neuroscience, psychology, and reality of how human beings actually operate all point to the same conclusion: Optimizing your systems yields better real-world results.

The Neuroscience Behind Habits

At their core, systems are all about habits – the small practices we regularly repeat without much conscious thought or effort. And as neuroscience has shown, habits are incredibly sticky and powerful drivers of human behavior.

Habits are encoded in the basal ganglia, a cluster of nuclei deep in the forebrain. This area acts like a kind of “behavior autopilot” that stores cognitive schemas and behavioral chunks¹. Once a perception or behavior pattern becomes encoded as a habit, it becomes largely free from conscious oversight and can run independently of the brain’s higher cognitive control centers.

So in a very real sense, habits form the behavioral bedrock that our lives are built upon. The reason lasting change is so difficult is that we’re fighting against these deeply ingrained neural networks and unconscious habit loops. The sheer force of willpower and goal-focused motivation can override habits in the short-term but are very difficult to sustain for the long haul.

Building productive systems is about slowly reshaping and rewiring those deeply habitual tendencies over time. It’s about making small, marginal adjustments and letting the compound effects of regularity and consistency gradually shift the trajectory of your life.

The Psychology of Why Goals Fail

From a psychological standpoint, goals also present other challenges. We often fall into what’s known as the “goal-deprivation” trap. When we set an ambitious goal (e.g. lose 30 pounds), we deprive ourselves of something in service of that future outcome (e.g. cutting out foods we enjoy). But that deprivation mindset breeds feelings of scarcity, resentment and rebellion.

We may be able to “white-knuckle” it for awhile, but eventually we binge on the very thing we’ve been depriving ourselves of. The rebound effect undoes much of our progress, leaving us feeling like failures.

Additionally, focusing too intently on the end result can breed anxiety, impatience, and counterproductive behavior². It’s easy to get demoralized before reaching your goal and then relapse into old, self-defeating patterns.

Systems help bypass these goal-oriented psychological pitfalls. By training your focus on the inputs rather than the outcomes, you don’t feel nearly as deprived. You’re simply integrating new productive habits into your life. The results take care of themselves as a side-effect.

The Mindset Manual for Building Better Systems

So, we’ve covered some of the neurological and psychological reasons why outcomes-based goals are flawed and process-based systems are preferable. But how do you actually build productive systems in your own life? Here are some mindset tips to get you started:

1. Focus on rhythm over intensity. It’s better to build a routine that you can realistically sustain than to go “all-in” with massive, unsustainable effort spikes followed by long rebounds. Consistency always trumps intensity.
2. Track your inputs, not your outputs. Instead of obsessing over results (outputs like weight, income, etc.), quantify and track the inputs that lead to those outputs. For instance, track workouts completed rather than lbs lost. The outputs will eventually follow.
3. Standardize before you optimize. Don’t try to perfect your habits right away. First, work on building the baseline habits and doing the minimum viable routines consistently. You can optimize your systems later.
4. Add habits in layers. Don’t try to completely overhaul your life in one go. Take on one new habit at a time. Once the first is well-established, add the next one.
5. Use alternating environment cues. Designate specific environments for certain activities and behaviors. For instance, the living room chair = reading & journaling spot. Your brain will start automatically associating those areas with those routines.

How Systems Drive Long-Term Success

At its core, building better systems is ultimately about developing higher-level character traits like perseverance, grit, and resilience, along with practical skills. These qualities compound over time and permit real and lasting success in any endeavor.

To illustrate this, let’s take a common goal like “getting fit.” Someone with an outcome mindset might set an audacious goal like “run a marathon in 6 months” or “lose 50 lbs for my wedding next year.” So they go on a crash diet and start running like a maniac to hit those numbers.

But without building intrinsic fitness habits and routines (i.e., systems), what happens once the motivating goal is hit? They’ll likely rebound back to their old lifestyle patterns and gain back anything they lost.

Compare that with someone focused on optimizing their fitness systems. They may start with micro-habits like: “Walk 15 minutes per day, take stairs when possible, drink a glass of water before each meal, do ten pushups every morning.” Nothing intense, just building baseline healthy patterns.

Over time, they incrementally layer in additional habits: prepping healthy meals, bodyweight exercises a few times per week, tracking their steps daily, and gradually increasing the duration and intensity of their workouts as their fitness systems grow.

While the “outcome-focused” individual hits their short-term goal and then falls off, the “systems-focused” person steadily improves their habits and health over months and years. They develop the self-discipline and consistency to stick with their routines for the long haul, reshaping their identity into that of a fit, healthy individual.

And that’s the true power of systems – they shape your deepest identity, skill sets, and character traits. The short-term outcomes are almost a side effect. Building habits like an ethical work process, a mindfulness practice, or a reading routine doesn’t just help you make more money, feel more present, or become smarter. They remake you into an ethical professional, focused meditator, or lifelong learner. That’s a powerful transformation worthy of the effort.

Hopefully by now you’re convinced that while goals can provide some sense of meaning and direction, true fulfillment and lasting change comes from optimizing your systems. It’s not the sexy, motivational approach. But it is the most reliable path for reshaping your life in a sustainable way.

So stop being a dragon chaser, constantly letting yourself get demoralized and making ungainly lurches toward some ever-receding goal. Become an immortal cultivator, focused on continually refining and improving your practices each day, allowing the compounding benefits of systems to slowly transform and elevate you over decades.

References:

1. Loonen, A. J. M., & Ivanova, S. A. (2016). Circuits Regulating Pleasure and Happiness: The Evolution of Reward-Seeking and Misery-Fleeing Behavioral Mechanisms in Vertebrates. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 10. ↩︎
2. Ghassemi, M., Bernecker, K., Herrmann, M., & Brandstätter, V. (2017). The process of disengagement from personal goals: Reciprocal influences between the experience of action crisis and appraisal of goal desirability and attainability. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. ↩︎