Self-Improvement

December 9, 2023

Have you ever heard the saying: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” or maybe you’ve seen self-improvement creators throw around the phrase “systems over goals.”

This advice, even though it is well-intentioned, misses a crucial point. They oversimplify the process of achieving meaningful progress.

This advice is holding you back and if you make this shift in perspective, you’ll be able to make actual progress towards your goals faster.

Shallow Advice

Creators love to regurgitate the shallow statement from Atomic Habits “systems over goals” and use that to try to be different and then give you a set system to follow. (a system that probably doesn’t align with your situation)

The reason why it’s bad advice is because you need clear goals to set up systems to achieve them. Not one goal, goal(s). 

Most people set one or two huge goals that are unattainable for their level and don’t end up making progress. 

This is because they don’t understand the smaller goals they need to chase first, and the problems they need to overcome to chase those goals. 

It’s like when video games make you take on the final boss in the first mission of the game to show his strength but he’s impossible to beat at your current skill level. 

(Ghost of Tsushima reference) 

You guys are trying to take on the final boss when you’re at level one. Your goal at the start is to fix your problems(lack of skill and weapons) then you go after the smaller goals that are more attainable(the smaller bosses.) Then over time, those smaller goals compound and you’re at your desired end goal(the final boss battle)

(Khoutan Kahn was easy)

You may already have a goal. But if it’s not an attainable one, you won’t be able to create those systems you speak so highly of to achieve it. 

Systems come after mental clarity.

To follow through with those systems,  you need to have your goal on top of your mind all the time. Like…always.

Develop A Sense Of Purpose

This is what I’ll call,

The Constant Flow State: the act of aligning everything you do at all times with something meaningful to you that brings you closer to your goal. This is aligning your conscious mind and body with your purpose at all times. whether that is through work or quality rest.

And you might be thinking: “Well I do have goals. so why haven’t I made progress?”

There’s a multitude of reasons you might not have made progress. But one thing I know is that every goal comes from some sort of desire. 

Shallow, or profound. 

If it’s shallow, it’s probably not going to induce much intrinsic motivation for you. Versus a profound meaningful goal.

“Shallow desires don't compel sacrifice, whereas, a committed purpose sacrifices everything. It borders obsession.” MJ DeMarco

You need intrinsically driven passions to make changes in your life, not shallow superficial pursuits.

The way to develop intrinsic motivation is to align your life with your values and meaningful goals and your actions will reflect that.

If you’re genuinely committed to something, you will make it happen through consistent action. 

I wasn’t waking up at 4 AM every day for months because of systems. I wasn’t even getting good sleep at the start. It was sheer willpower. I wanted something so badly, that I was sacrificing good sleep to get there. Of course, this will come back to bite you over a long period, and I eventually did make a system to get good sleep and wake up early. I wrote about it here. But all of that stemmed from one meaningful goal, which was to quit my job. then turned into milestones that I needed to accomplish, which turned into consistent daily action. Then came the systems.

The truth is that you need to go head first into things. Maybe without a plan. The more time that you spend planning on how to do something, the longer it will take you to complete it, versus just going head first into something with the knowledge that you have and creating systems that solve those problems that you encounter. 

Seek knowledge when you need it. You can’t create systems if you haven’t identified the problem that needs to be solved. 

If you’re depressed, and you’re trying to start a business, like I was, it’s not going to work. Your goal at that moment is to fix your habits so you can improve your mental health. Then with improved mental health, you can work on the business.

You want to start a business but you don’t want to be alive. See how that makes no sense?

I used to have this idea in my head, that if I made a lot of money, then my mental health would get better because I could erase all my problems. But in reality, there's no way that I could make a dollar of income if I still had bad mental health holding me back. I made my first $20 online, coaching someone else on their mental health. But there was no way I could do that for them if I was still suffering.

“But Abraham, what if I already have a plan?” Your plan will fail. That's where systems come in.

Some people will say that obsessing over a goal is bad for you and that the point is to enjoy the journey. But that's also not true. You can enjoy the journey along the way, there's nothing wrong with that. Having a hierarchy of goals that you can achieve along the journey will make you stick with it. You can say you want to enjoy the journey all you want but let’s see what happens when something doesn’t go your way or you hit a roadblock. That journey mentality isn’t going to keep you going.

Purposeful Planning

So now that you understand the concepts, I'll tell you how you can use goals to create systems.

I want you to think of an architect designing a building. 

The completed structure is the goal, while the systems are the design creation, material selection, and construction process. 

Without a clear vision of the completed building (the goal), the architect wouldn't know what kind of design to create or which materials to select (the systems). 

But, without the systems, the building will remain a mere concept and never become a reality. 

Hence, both the goal and the systems are essential for the design and construction of a building.

In my free challenge course: 14 Days to Purpose, I go over this concept of purposeful planning in detail. 

It consists of 14 days of journal prompts and actionable steps to take that will help you live more purposefully on your self-improvement journey and help you gain clarity by having you create your future and steps to get there. Check it out.

Step 1: Set a big big goal. This should be more like a vision or the Blueprint for your future self. This is probably what you have been basing your actions around. (it probably hasn’t worked)

Step 2: Refine. Take that blueprint and refine it into a hierarchy of goals over a long period. 

Set a 10-year goal. Then a 5-year goal that’s bringing you there. Then a 1 year goal. Now we’re thinking smaller here.

Then when you have your one-year goals which are probably the easiest to set, you can divy it up into quarterly or monthly goals. I prefer monthly.

Step 3: Systems. Now that we have refined the one big goal into a goal that you can complete within the next few months, we can set up small daily actions that will get you there.

Deep Work

Set priority tasks that lead to you accomplishing your monthly goals. These are what you’ll be doing in deep work blocks daily. They should be done when you can have the most focused energy possible. 

For most people, this would be first thing in the morning. 

I used to wake up at 4 AM to do this before work. Now I wake up at 5. 

There’s no better feeling than knocking out all of my work for the day and getting a workout in before some people are even awake.

For me, I set aside at least 2 hours a day to write my newsletter. And another 2 hours for my current projects.

Yes, that’s all you need. 

I started out doing it in less time than that. As long as you’re making some sort of consistent progress every day that’s all you need.

For this period, you need to eliminate all distractions, including other irrelevant work. 

So many people get stuck in this phase of doing the small unimportant tasks of replying to every single comment and changing the channel banner before they even have a video up and things like that. 

Those are things that you do when you’re not doing your focused work.

I didn’t have a banner on my channel until like 3 months in and it took me 2 minutes to make it in Canva.

My profile picture is some random picture I took in Boston about a year and a half ago.

Those weren’t the things that helped me. It was the deep work tasks like recording, editing, and uploading videos that moved the levers to success on YouTube. 

All of it was done with the conscious goal in mind of being financially free.

Your journey towards achieving your goals is a process.

 It requires both a clear destination and an efficient system to get you there. 

Don't let oversimplified advice derail you from your path to success. 

Keep your end goal in mind, refine it, set up systems, and actively work on it every day. 

The journey can be enjoyable, but only when it leads you closer to your goals. 

So go ahead, set your goals, build your systems, and enjoy the journey towards your success.

That is all for now. Make sure to try out 14 Days to Purpose to apply these steps in real life.

Enjoy your weekend,

-Abraham