I've heard people say that rather than focus on goals, focus on systems. Like, one time I set a goal to dead lift 400lbs. I actually did it a couple years later. The stupid thing is I stopped lifting maybe 3 months after that. Lifting 400lbs really meant nothing. Focusing on that goal was pointless. Focusing on the system of getting stronger and healthier would have been far more sensible, because there is no end to it, and there's endless progress to be made. Well, within one's own means - you could lift, swim, climb, whatever. Just enjoy it and push yourself, and you'll probably find more ways to get better at it than you could manage in your lifetime.
I've been realizing recently, maybe late in life - I don't know if this is obvious to other people much earlier - that discreet goals don't make much sense in such changeable, open-ended lives. Why aim to save $10,000 when you could aim to maintain the practice of saving 10% of your income - forever? Every month or quarter or year you can look and say hell yes, I hit that goal! Maybe you want to increase it one year. $10k will run out in no time, but a good habit doesn't. Also, maybe saving sums of money isn't really what we need to focus on... Kind of like lifting some arbitrary weight. Maybe what we really want is health and strength, or financial security and independence to allow us to buy the things we want or need. Maybe rather than travelling to a specific location, we want to live in such a way that we can have the opportunity and means to explore and see interesting places. The discreet goals could be a sub-goal of the system perhaps, but probably shouldn't be the focus.
I've always had these silly discreet goals and terrible habits to support them. I think, moving forward into my later 30s and beyond, I'll try more to focus on systems over discreet, limited results.
> You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
> This is a quote from my new book Atomic Habits and was adapted from one of my favorite sayings by the Greek poet Archilochus: “We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
I've been realizing recently, maybe late in life - I don't know if this is obvious to other people much earlier - that discreet goals don't make much sense in such changeable, open-ended lives. Why aim to save $10,000 when you could aim to maintain the practice of saving 10% of your income - forever? Every month or quarter or year you can look and say hell yes, I hit that goal! Maybe you want to increase it one year. $10k will run out in no time, but a good habit doesn't. Also, maybe saving sums of money isn't really what we need to focus on... Kind of like lifting some arbitrary weight. Maybe what we really want is health and strength, or financial security and independence to allow us to buy the things we want or need. Maybe rather than travelling to a specific location, we want to live in such a way that we can have the opportunity and means to explore and see interesting places. The discreet goals could be a sub-goal of the system perhaps, but probably shouldn't be the focus.
I've always had these silly discreet goals and terrible habits to support them. I think, moving forward into my later 30s and beyond, I'll try more to focus on systems over discreet, limited results.