Systems Are Greater than Goals
I had lunch with Syd Markle last week. We had tried to meet earlier in this year, but last-minute meeting shifts got the better of us. So when we both walked into the same cafe on the same day (yes, it was planned) to enjoy an excellent roasted tomato soup and toasty sandwich, it was a delightful thing.
Syd has been a Magnesium constant from its very beginning. This year, however, she took the year off. Not because she isn’t working towards something, because she very much is. She simply needed some time back to focus (refocus) on some things important to her and to her family, to ensure that her systems support her goals. I not only agreed with her, I celebrated her decision. I hope we all have the grace and fortitude to state what we need.
By the way, pay very close attention to Syd’s language, that her systems support her goals. That’s important, and that is the focus of this blog post.
We’re well into March at this point, and for those here in the United States, we’ve just “sprung forward” in observance of Daylight Savings Time, loathsome practice that it is. If people have set goals for themselves for 2024, they likely set them 4-6 weeks ago. I certainly did. So why is it that I’m now turning my attention to this topic?
Simple: we need to hear this.
What Are Systems, What Are Goals?
This is a fantastic question, one that needs a very clear response. What are systems, and what are goals, and what does all of this have to do with Syd Markle?
Let’s start with Syd. During one of the monthly Magnesium checkins for 2023, I was admiring Syd’s bikablo practice on her whiteboard behind her. She had drawn an image of “systems are greater than goals” as part of her own 100 days practice. She drew a different graphic each day for concepts such as “user story” and “progress.” She used the 100 days to practice her skills, and at the end of the 100 days, she had not only markedly improved but had developed a substantial digital library of her own.
That explains the Syd part. To explain the differences between systems and goals, I turned to two people, Scott Adams (yes, the Scott Adams of Dilbert fame) and to James Clear. Both have pithy, clear definitions.
In his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Scott Adams writes, “If you do something every day, its a system. If you're waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it's a goal.”
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes, “Goals are merely a representation of the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes. The good daily habits that will lead to those results.”
Okay, working from how Adams and Clear define goals and systems, here is my take: goals are a future state, a point to which you are navigating. Systems are the present, the right now, built of your daily habits or practices. Goals are what I want to achieve, and systems are how I will do it.
Clear also writes, “Goals help you set direction, but they are nothing on their own. They are focused on a future state. Systems are about the things you need to do daily, that will make you the person you want to be. They are focused on the present. Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. I’m a big fan of James Clear and his new Atom app (which I use!) “If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead,” he writes in a post entitled “Forget about Setting Goals. Focus on this instead.”
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” —James Clear
Let’s make this personal. I very much want to be a speaker on a TedX stage. I started thinking about this in 2020, and it fell to the wayside. It’s coming back up again, and I want to make it a reality. If one of my goals (future state) is to be a TedX speaker, then these are some systems (current state) that could help me to walk out on that stage:
employ a public-speaking coach
apply to more in-person conferences for speaking opportunities
obtain more feedback on my presentations
join a public-speaking practice group
launch MgX (a combination of Magnesium and TedX) to give others a chance to practice and improve their speaking skills
Side note: MgX is in the early stages of becoming a reality in 2025! I’ll keep you posted!
spend more time crafting the pitches and applications I write for speaking opportunities. Getting some feedback from TedX speakers wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
But this is me. What are some of the systems you might want to build?
Tenure-Track Professor
It’s no secret that I do a lot of coaching work within universities. If you are a tenure-track professor working towards tenure or a promotion to full professor, you’re likely focusing on your publications output. You might be building systems that look something like this.
setting blocked, protected writing time each day
joining a working group to improve existing grant applications
creating Kanban boards to see how you’re breaking down all of your research ideas and in-progress submissions
booking a late May writing retreat before leaving your university for the summer
finding an accountability partner to check in with regularly
Director-Level Promotion
Let’s say you work in the private sector, and you’ve worked your way up from individual contributor to manager and now senior manager. You’d like your next promotion to be to a director-level role. You might be building systems that look something like this.
identifying and working with mentors within your division
a “tribe” of mentors, people within your division, your organization, and outside your organization is also a great idea
talking to your leader, letting them know of your plan
seeking out and accepting more “reach” assignments
employing a coach
joining a supervision group so that you learn from and with others with your same goals
keeping a reflection journal or reflective practice about your work
Your Own Health
The systems needed to improve your physical health might be this:
Your partner takes the early dog walk so that you can go to the gym before 6:00 am
employ a personal trainer to create customized workouts
plan each meal, prepping ahead as needed
order groceries online to avoid the temptation of snack aisles
visit your physician for a complete physical and bloodwork
floss every evening, right before brushing your teeth
As I write this section, I feel like I’m reverse engineering, starting at where I want to end and working back to the beginning. Perhaps I am. However, with every improved system, I move closer to achieving my goals.
From Habit to Practice
Language matters. How I talk to myself about myself is deeply important.
Earlier this year, I was featured in a Medium piece on creating a highly successful career as a life or business coach. (Side note: I consider myself neither a life nor business coach. I work with systems, I work with teams, I work with people. Full stop.) But in getting that piece together, I referenced Annie Dillard. She wrote this:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
Years ago, I remember being in church and hearing the pastor praise the music director for being able to play the piano beautifully, extemporaneously, before the start of Sunday services. The pastor loved hearing the director play, and he recognized the years of practice that it took to get to that point. He’d love to get to that level, but he had not put in the practice.
From my earliest days, I have been a list maker. I derive comfort from Rhodia pads, bullet journals, and the like, and crossing items off and moving an item to done gives me great satisfaction. I keep old journals on a bookshelf, and every once in a great while, I’ll return to them, looking for something in particular. Over the years, I’ve surprised myself. I can see the trajectory of my practices, how they have served and what I’ve let go and what I’ve modified.
My practices show me how I’ve spent my days, how I’ve spent my life. I love this.
I am what I practice.
Back to the Questions
With me, it’s always about the questions. Here are some questions you might consider:
What are the systems you need to build?
What are the systems you need to practice or refine?
What systems are not working? What systems require repair?
How will these systems help you to achieve your goals?
Gratitude
In talking to other friends, so many of us are in this same boat. We have great virtual relationships with friends and colleagues, but we miss having in-person lunch, tea, wine, walks. It’s a stretch, reawakening the social muscle, one that has atrophied after three-plus years of disuse. I’m grateful to Syd and to so many others for helping me to step back into practice.
While Linda Nickell generously provides the photos I use for my blog posts, this month, Syd Markle did this drawing. I felt it only fitting that her work be front and center as it was she who drew me into this topic in the first place. If you’d like to connect with Linda, you can find her on Instagram as @coznlinda, or join in on Wednesday evenings for her Happiness Hour. If you’d like to find Syd, she is on LinkedIn or often at the Agile Austin Coaching meetup.