Goal Setting Is a Hamster Wheel. Learn to Set Systems Instead. | Adam Alter | Big Think

[Music] Goal-setting is fascinating because it's sort of a broken process in many respects. This is the way a goal works: you say to yourself, "When I achieve whatever the thing is, that's how I'll know I'll have this. I'll have succeeded, and I'm going to do everything I can to get to that point as quickly as possible." What that means is you exist in a failure state for a long time until you reach that goal if it's a long-range goal.

As you evaluate your process, all you get is the negative feedback of not having achieved that goal. Perhaps as you move closer to it, there's some positive feedback. But if the goal is really the end state that you're seeking out, there's a lot of failure before you get there.

And now here's the thing: when you do get there, it's a massive anticlimax. So there are people who achieve the highest highs. People who achieve the highest highs in athletics, in business, and if you talk to them and you destroy it, you ask them to describe what it's like to reach their goals, they say things like, "I got there, and it was an incredible anticlimax. The minute I got there, I had to start something new. I had to find a new goal."

That's partly because there's something really unsatisfying about the moment of reaching the goal unless it has its own benefits that come from reaching the goal. If it's just a sort of signpost that doesn't do much for us, it doesn't nourish us psychologically. What that ends up meaning is that we have to try and find something new.

So really, if you look at life as a series of goals—which for many of us it is—it's a period of being unsuccessful in achieving the goal, then hitting the goal, then feeling like you haven't really got much from that goal, going to the next one, and it's a sort of series of escalating goals.

A really good example of this is, say, smart watches or Fitbits or exercise watches. People, when they get those watches, a lot of them hit on the number 10,000. "I want to walk 10,000 steps." When you do that, the thing will beep, you'll feel pretty good about it for a minute, but then that feels a little hollow.

And the goal escalates over time. People will describe going from 10 to 11 to 12 to 14 thousand steps to the point where they're moving through injuries—through stress-related injuries—because the goal is there. They respond to the goal more than they do to their internal cues.

Basically, there's something really unfulfilling about that. The reason it keeps escalating and becoming more and more intense is because when they achieve the goal, they don't actually get anything for that achievement. And so goals, generally, I think, are in many ways broken processes.

I think part of the problem with goals is that they don't tell you how to get to where you're going. A better thing to do is to use a system. So the idea behind a system, rather than a goal, is that a system is saying things like, "I'm a writer. My goal is to finish writing this book," but I'm not going to think about it that way. Eventually, I'll have a hundred thousand words.

But what my system will be is that for an hour every morning, I will sit in front of my computer screen and I will type. It doesn't matter what that looks like. I'm not going to evaluate the number of words; I'm not going to set some benchmarks, some artificial number or benchmark that I should reach. What I'm going to do is just say, "Here's my system: an hour a day in front of the screen; I will do what I can."

And the thing is, every time you set a system and you stick to it, you're achieving something. Instead of a goal that you're failing essentially for long periods of time until you reach the goal, you're succeeding every day as long as you adhere to your system. You end up getting to the same place, but that framing is so much more effective.

It gives you the kind of positive feedback you seek, and the system is kind of geared towards psychological well-being. This is the thing I need to do to feel good about the way I'm moving through the world towards whatever end state I'm looking for. Goals don't do that; they just set signposts that you're supposed to look at from afar.