Systems, not goals

@JonicaBradley 's weekly prompt is about motivation. Honestly, I don’t know where to begin because to be frank with you, I am not much motivated lately. I just feel like I’ve been drifting everywhere. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still function everyday. I report to work and do my tasks, I submit them on time and with quality. But lately, I feel like I’m not satisfied with what I am doing.

My friends keep telling me that maybe I’m just burnt out, as I haven’t really found the time to rest after the busy season, which most of us do by taking a 1 to 2 weeks leave. 

I can’t file a leave until August because I’m working on a priority client, so I can’t really afford to rest. But I’m not that overworked, as compared to before, but still… deep down I know I’m tired.

I’m also frustrated lately because I haven’t been able to achieve the majority of my goals, the main reason for it is the pandemic. Most of them are postponed and what’s worse is that some of them are totally cancelled. This is the main reason why I can’t bring myself to set a new goal, which we all know leads to motivation.

I’m afraid that I might not be able to achieve it because everything in this world is uncertain as of the moment. 

Then last night, I came across this concept that we should stop making goals and start creating systems.

Systems, not goals. Why?

1. Fixate on things within your control.

When you create a system, you focus on things that you can control. 

Systems are the things you do to achieve your goal. I’ll give you an example almost all of us can relate to, losing weight.

Most of us set goals like "I want to lose 10 pounds" or "I want to have a 26 inches waist line." We need to set up systems in order to achieve this, whether be it drinking more water, less salty and unhealthy foods and going to the gym or exercising regularly.

If you look at it, you can control the quality and healthfulness of your food and the frequency of going to the gym, which are your systems, but you can’t control the weight or inches you'll lose, which is your goal.

2. Goals create stress and a feeling of failure.

In relation to the first point, achieving your goals has many variables within it, it creates stress within you. You start thinking, did I do something wrong? Am I not doing it properly but I'm already starving myself?  Then you try and compensate for it by more exercise and eating less and less, driving yourself crazy thinking it was because of you.

After all this self-doubt and stress, you will realize, most likely nothing has changed. It will leave you the feeling of being a failure. You might think that this is your fault as to why you’re not achieving your goals while in reality, other factors just come into play, most of which are out of your control. Like body proportion, hormones, metabolism or sometimes even disorders.

3. Goals are uncertain and hard to follow.

If you look at it, goals are your finish line, your output. You're basically setting up an ending to everything that you do. But honestly, achieving a goal does not depend solely on how much you want it or how much you fixate on it because if it is, we all might be millionaires by now, even billionaires.

Yes, achieving your goals mainly depends on you but it isn’t the only factor for it. In this pandemic, almost everything is uncertain. In just a snap everything can turn 180 degrees and this leads to you not achieving your goals, which screams your goals will always be uncertain no matter how much you want it. 

But the systems you do, you can choose. You can change it, discard it, everything you want, you can control it. 

4. Systems generate results and help you achieve goals. 

I am a firm believer of “small things lead to great heights”. If you stick to your systems and focus on the input that you are giving, it would surely add up and make you achieve the goals you wanted in the first place. Maybe in a slightly different way but surely, systems or your efforts will eventually pay off. 

Your efforts will never betray you. We sometimes just get lost because our goals might seem blurry and out of reach but if you look at the present and what systems are you gonna do, you’ll be surprised at how much you have achieved so far. 

I just used losing weight as an example but this is applicable to every goal that we have. I remember when I started working and I wanted to save up. I opened an MP2 account. I didn’t really have a goal back then, I just wanted to save.

I deposited money every time I received my salary, it’s the same amount every cut-off and I never missed. I felt it at first and it just became a habit or as I talked about, a system. Then I am amazed at how much I saved because of it. You can see that systems eventually will lead you up to your goals if you become consistent. 

I would love to write more about the systems that I have set for myself for the month of June but it will make this article too long so I’ll just make a second part of why you should stop setting goals and create systems instead.

I hope that we will all have a fruitful month. 

See you around!