Why Your Goals Don't Work

If you haven’t read last weeks post, this one will make more sense if you do that first.

Seriously go do it.

Stop reading.

Anyways. Here’s the deal. I know people love goals and there is a time and place for them. I even recorded a whole video in 2020 about setting goals — before I abandoned my YouTube channel.

I was able to manifest some of the goals I wrote on my wall. So the next thing I’m gonna say will probably surprise you.

Goals are overrated.

I’ll sum it up with 1 quote from James Clear. "You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems."

Anyone can set goals. Your willingness to create systems and put in the work is what sets you apart from other people.

Picture 2 olympians. Both have the goal to win a gold medal, only the one with the best training can take the medal home. Unless you’re these guys…

Training is simply a system that involves workouts, nutrition, therapy and consistent repeated effort. So setting a goal is great, but creating a system that will help you achieve that goal is what matters.

Here’s another reason goals are overrated.

They signal an end point.

Congratulations you’ve achieved your goal, now what?

There are 2 types of games. Finite games and infinite games. In a finite game there are agreed upon rules, two teams, known players and a set goal: win the game. In an infinite game, the only point of the game is to keep the game going: think marriage, business or fitness.

All the best games in life are infinite games. If we’re attempting to apply the rules of finite games to games that are actually infinite we’re going to be disappointed even after “winning” or achieving our goals.

Here’s where the 30 day review comes in.

I've done several different versions of this in the past. Here’s why it works:

• 30 days is long enough to find repeated actions

• 30 days is short enough to make quick changes

You wouldn’t look at each day individually and judge your success towards a goal on a 24 hour time frame. At most you’ll make 2-3 actions towards any goal in a day.

Equally as important, it's easier to turn around and go back the opposite direction if you only missed 2 highway exits instead of 15.

I’ve broken my monthly review into 4 large “L” buckets that help me know which direction to steer my car.

Another similar framework used in the business world is:

• Stop

• Start

• Continue

Whatever framework you choose, the outcome you want is to head towards your “dream life” from last week’s post.

Stop trying to win the game. Start trying find the road to El Dorado.

Thank you for reading this far, I’m humbled! Could I ask you for a small favour? Sharing this newsletter with 1 person is completely free and it’s the best way to support me!