James Clear, author of Atomic Habits says that today’s understanding of habit research shows that people achieve their destination better through systems instead of goals. This is because systems take the reliance away from willpower, which is ineffective, and instead relies on the structure of a system that’s easy to repeat and build on. He discusses the idea that it’s better to aim for 1% better consistently than to try and go full on into a new way of living. It’s obvious that there’s a flaw in doing that anyway, it’s most common for people to give up their new years resolution within the first few weeks of January. There is also a pass/fail type of mentality with goals. You either achieve your goals or you don’t. There’s no in-between, no room for error.
This kind of mentality is what can make achieving new year’s resolutions too difficult. We take on too much, dream too much of what we could achieve but implement no plan on how to achieve that, or try and do too much at once. The cognitive load in having to maintain all these new endevours, new hobbies and new habits are too much for us. We give up.
Experiment
What if I tried to set up systems for achieving my goals this year. I could then rely on these sytems to achieve these goals this year?
What are my goals? I want to:
- write more;
- learn go, rust and become more proficient in javascript;
- read more;
- commit more to the gym; and
- get into cardio exercise.
What are some systems I could put in place for achieving these goals?