“For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”~Michelle Obama
You’ve just achieved a goal you’ve been working towards for two years. You did it! Congratulations. Someone asks you: how does it feel? “Kind of anti-climactic, actually,” you say. This scenario is quite common among those who have achieved even the highest benchmarks in business, athletics, or art, says Adam Alter, and it’s because the goal-setting process is broken.
With long-term goals particularly, you spend the large majority of the time in a failure state, awaiting what could be a mere second of success down the track.
This can be a hollow and unrewarding process. Describing an idea first proposed by Scott Adams in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Alter suggests swapping quantitative goals (I will write 1,000 words of my novel per day. I will run 1km further every week) for qualitative systems—like writing every morning with no word target, or running in a new environment each week—that nourish you psychologically, and are independently rewarding each time you do them.
Adam Alter is the author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.
Learn to Set Systems | Adam Alter
- Identify ONE thing you want to become and write it down.
- Create a system for your becoming [what action will you regularly do to become that thing?] and write it down.
- Make a plan in your schedule to do the action.
- Do it.
- Review your daily tasks [all that you need to do in a day] twice a day to hold yourself accountable & get back on track when you slip up.
- What are your thoughts on this idea of Systems vs. Goals? Please share in the comments.
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