Systems vs Goals: Why Atomic Habits Is Only Half Right

I've always been interested in systems for success and for productivity. I was intrigued by reading books like Atomic Habits, which is a fantastic book, but it gives you the theory, the conceptual understanding. It's motivating. And all of it makes sense. So, what's the problem? It doesn't give you the pragmatic way to implement a system, or build one for yourself.

You're left with. Ok? What do I do with all of this awesome information? You walk away with a question mark on how to apply theory to your direct situation and goals.

Everyone is using some system to create their goals. For me, it was reactive to life. My boss. My job. My disappointments. My hopes. My fears. I didn't realize that I needed a system to create and organize my goals. One that would help me break them apart, clear up an unclear path, and execute in meaningful ways.

Not All Goals Are Created Equal

I use to not tap into what my goals meant because I didn't define them clearly. I would lump all goals together, like some hopeful quilt. You've got some goals. But not all goals are created equal. Not all goals are the same.

When I started to systematize things, I realized there are two different types of goals. And that's really where the power is. They say that naming something is what give it its power. The power is in the name.

That means that the power comes when you define your goals. When you name them, say exactly what they are. There are two ways you can do this that are distinct, but rely on each other. They are symbiotic. One goal type will fail without the other. You win if you use them both.

The first type is what I call Deep Goals. These are what most people call "goals." They're the resolutions and the motivations that get you fired up and inspired when the new year comes around. They carry all the emotional baggage, the hopes and dreams and desires you wish to fulfill. But they have a shelf life. They don't sustain your motivation for very long. They give you no practical steps to reach them. You've probably experienced this or know someone who has. It's the New Year's Resolutions. Dropped after two weeks.

The second type is Sprint Goals. These are the execution activities. They're the smaller steps to reach your deep goals. These are the literal stepping stones. What sustains motivation is not reaching the big goal. That big goal is going to take a long time. What motivates and sustains you is achieving the smaller goals, the iterations to that goal. That builds your track record of success. Traction is what gives you motivation to keep going.

You may be attached to the big goal. They inspire and motivate you when you set them. But it's hard to change (habits). It's hard to move a mountain. It's easy to move a pebble. The difference: you need to define what pebbles you're moving in order to move the mountain.

No other system that I've read breaks down or talks about two different goal types. Everyone just assumes that we have goals. They just lump it together. The "system" is the connection between your big goals and the smaller goals. The art is how you connect them and why.

What Happens When You Have a System Without Goals

Execution and fulfillment are not the same thing. You can be a master at putting out fires and completing tasks and feel ZERO joy for life. You can be addicted to completion by making "checking off lists" your benchmark. That can head you in the wrong direction for years. The regret comes later.

I remember talking to military personnel who were in the military for 20 or 30 years. They were good at following orders. They did what they were told to do and they did it very well and became very distinguished. But when they retired from the military, they felt massive regret. They didn't know what they were doing with their life. They executed really well, but they were executing someone else's goals. They were using someone else's systems. They never asked the questions: What am I doing? What do I want to do as a person? What makes me feel fulfilled?

You can get addicted to execution and forget to answer the basic questions. They seem kind of silly nowadays because we're such a hustle and grind culture. But ask the question: What motivates me? What sustains me? What makes me feel fulfilled and happy? These are things that we often put to the side as reflections for later or nice-to-haves. But these are the core things that are your guiding principle. These are what you should work towards on a daily basis.

Deep goals carry the emotion because they're inspiring, but they have a shelf life. When you set a goal like a SMART goal, it's very surgical. It's like you're in an operating room. Very precise and cold and sterile. It takes some of the magic and luster out of the goals. What sustains that magic and luster is the connection between the big goal and the smaller steps.

The Missing Piece: Time

The missing piece was time itself.

What I always wanted to know is: how do I stop beating myself up when I miss a goal? How do I sustain myself? I was attached to the results. I wanted to win. I wanted that goal to happen. And there's a lot of pressure in that.

When we evaluate where we are right now, we're evaluating where we are against our future self, which we're not there yet. So it's not a great experience because we feel like we're lacking. Atomic Habits is all about your daily routines, which you could say are the small little goals. But there's no structure there to help you deal with the pressure of having big goals and working towards them and feeling low self-worth.

What changed everything for me was timed intervals. Using short intervals of time, 30, 60, 90 minutes, allows you to step away from the pressure of achievement and commit to an interval of time. You forget about results and just focus on a clear, defined activity that's connected to something that matters deeply to you.

That is a system. It allows you to forget about the pressures you might have financially if you're trying to pay your mortgage or trying to build a relationship or a business. It allows you to commit to an interval of time. And then you can systematically stack up units of time. Now that's practical.

That interval of time allows you to step aside from the emotions. And that's what these other books do not tell you how to do. They tell you you need a system and you need good habits, but they don't deal with the emotional aspect of actually being you and working in a world where it's 24/7 hustle and grind. The way to step outside of those emotions and unlock your higher potential is to focus and commit to time, versus trying to beat yourself up about habits that you're not making or that you're constantly breaking.

Goals Without a System vs a System Without Goals

The 5 Channels: Why Work Gets Everything

When you build attention and time around the goals of all of your life from a 360 perspective, then you're paying attention to all the things that matter to you. We're used to just focusing on work. And yes, you need a systematic approach. But most people don't have one. They leave elements and parts of their life to chance. They don't use time as an ally in their favor.

There's an unspoken assumption that the spiritual life you have, or the community life, or the relationships, those are things that you just respond to as they happen. But it's the reverse. You actually need to set the same intentionality that you have for your health goals and your work goals. You need to be as intentional with your time and the goals for each of those channels.

You can see each one as a bucket that you need to invest time and energy into, one that you need awareness around. You might say quality time is important, but when you have a relationship, if it's on top of mind that you know that building a relationship with your spouse means you want to do some key activities for a month and you set those as a goal between you and your partner, that's something very tangible that you can work towards.

The reason work gets all the attention is because it's tied to financial goals. It's tied to feeling worthwhile and valuable and being seen. The social proof aspect of it. Some of the other goals that we have, they're almost like secrets. They're hidden. They're less tangible and less rewarded by society. They're less popular.

But we should have clear goals for our spiritual life. We should have time around that. We should set parameters because that's what unlocks creativity. That's what unlocks true development. It's not open-endedness for everything. It's constraints so you can operate with something specific. You define it. You give it a box.

When you can commit to an interval of time, the smallest interval of time for your relationship or community, and declare a specific action, and you make it so that it's doable for you, and you know what that is, it's much easier. It's much better for you emotionally. You're not going to always love it, but when you know that you can do it, you build that track record. And that's what you need: traction.

If you say 15 minutes, I'm going to do this activity and it's in this goal, you can definitely do that. Once you commit to it and do it the first time, the second time, you prove it to yourself. And that is how you have staying power. When you see that progress, you can look back and say, yes, I've got data, I've done this.

Monthly Cycles

How do we divide up our time in a given month? That's what sprints give us.

When we look at monthly cycles, we can look at and be inspired by something we can achieve in a month. We can write a whole book in a month. That's very inspiring. We could do a lot. But if we have goals that are too big, that are going to take three to six years in the future, it's not very motivating now where we are.

We need a way to trick ourselves. We need a way to emotionally motivate ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to tests. And that's what happens when we work in monthly cycles. We can see clear goals. We can make things that are stretch goals that are difficult but that are still achievable.

It's taking the software mentality of making a minimum viable product, and we're doing it every month. And then you have built-in two-week sprints. So you have a built-in checkpoint in the middle of the month. That gives you a review process where you can look and say, okay, are these goals correct? Do I need to make changes?

So we have this system for clarifying our goals, for working towards them, for taking actions, and reviewing and reflecting on what we're doing. It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to take a long time.

When we see everything we're doing from that perspective, we can make changes. We can make decisions and we feel empowered because we're making them with actual data that we're reflecting on. Just the same decisions that leaders make for business. They want the data. They want to see the output. They want to see the reality of the situation.

We need to see the reality of the situation with all of our goals. Are we meditating or not, if we decided that's important? Are we actually going out with our partner like we said? When you see that data, you can make changes to your schedule that are going to reinforce how you live your life.

The mistake that I've made and many people make is that they don't review their own data. They wait too long. Years. And they realize, wait a minute, I've been doing it all wrong. We don't have to beat ourselves up like that. No, we just check in monthly. We keep ourselves accountable. And then we set goals within that period that motivate us. And that's what's going to give us that staying power.

It's not that we're reaching our big goals all the time. But we know we're making progress towards them. And so it's just a matter of time if we stay true and commit to the time.

The System That Connects Both

A real system is able to break things down. There's no perfect system. But when you can clearly define things and make it quantifiable data, when you can articulate and define terms and take the abstract and bring it into your terms, then you've got something to work with that's concrete.

The biggest mistake is saying you need a system but having no way to apply it. Having a goal but having no way to execute it. Or not even understanding your goals in the first place.

The approach is to understand that you need to systematically break down your goals, and then go deeper, understanding the goals between the different areas of your life. That is the nuance that is missed. And it is a framework that makes that easy to apply for your situation, your career, and your desire for what you want to achieve.

When you start to break things down in this way, you see a system that arises. You see an approach that is almost invisible, that you are just the experience of, that you're the byproduct of, that you can't really put a name to. Certain books out there touch on it. They get close to it. But they can't really articulate it.

The power lies in finding the terms. In defining the deep goals and the sprint goals. In creating an interplay between the two. That's the system. That's the connection.

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Related: Why Most Life Goals Stall | Stop Managing Your Time. Start Managing Your Output | How to Plan a Month That Actually Works

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between systems and goals?

Most people lump all their goals together, but there are two different types of goals. Deep Goals carry the emotion but have a shelf life. Sprint Goals are the execution goals, the tasks around those big goals. A system is the connection between the two.

Do you need both systems and goals?

Goals without a system fail you because they don't sustain your motivation. A system without goals means you can execute really well but head in the wrong direction for years. You need both, connected through an interplay between deep goals and sprint goals.

How do you connect goals to a system?

By breaking goals into two types, using timed intervals of 30, 60, or 90 minutes to step away from the pressure of achievement and focus on a defined activity, and reviewing your progress monthly with built-in two-week sprint checkpoints.

What are Deep Goals and Sprint Goals?

Deep Goals are the resolutions and motivations that get you fired up. They carry the hopes and dreams and desires you wish to fulfill, but they have a shelf life. Sprint Goals are the smaller steps, the iterations to that goal, that build your track record of success and keep you going.