Goal setting is not new. The new year resolutions are all about it. Neither is the notion of setting up efficient processes or a schedule an unheard concept. At some point in our lives, we’ve heard, “I don’t set goals or resolutions because it’s a myth. You eventually fall out of sight of these goals. It’s about setting up the routines.”
And maybe you’ve also encountered the argument, “We need goals to know what exactly we want to achieve. The rest follows eventually.”
Unfortunately, we have also seen instances of people taking either of the two approaches and not making it across the line. This results in them deciding eventually that, “Nothing I do matters” or “It’s either a myth or not my cup of tea.”
It can be challenging to decide on which path works. But few questions to ponder upon are; Can only one of them work? Or is it possible for both approaches to perform the same tasks? Or maybe, they both need to co-exist and complete each other to help us cross the line? Time to dive in cogently.
Let’s begin by acknowledging a few observations. Setting up new year resolutions isn’t as challenging for most as creating an actual plan to hunt these goals down. Often wishful thinking is mistaken for goal setting. While it’s normal for the goals to be overwhelming for a person at that moment, there’s still a difference. It is recommended that a goal intimidates a person, after all, it is a goal for a reason; something that appears distant and maybe a little too far to map the way immediately. Well, otherwise we’d just call it a task rather than a goal.
Spotting the difference between wishful thinking and goals can be an entire topic in itself. But time being let’s go ahead with the notion that setting up goals is something that anyone who dares to dream, can do so with minimal effort.
It’s almost always the execution phase, where things get rough. The very reason the systems or routines come into the picture. This probably means that systems weigh heavily on the goals, don’t they? Or?
Let’s draw some analogies. We, humans, love some stories, some correlations, don’t we?
Consider 3 ships that are starting from Tokyo towards destination Hawaii. The ship A is allowed to have the state-of-the-art navigation system but is not allowed to start its propellers or to unfurl its sail. The ship B is allowed to possess the best propellers or engines but is not permitted to use any sort of navigation system, even blinding the crews’ eyes so they can’t see the stars to navigate. The third ship C is allowed to use its propellers and their navigation system, though both of basic build.
Now the question is, who would make it to Hawaii? And if they do, who would make it first?
The ship A crew gets its path perfectly optimized; the calculation of the least distance between the points, the best season to travel and the route with the smallest amount opposing winds and waves. Everything is brilliant, but the ship can’t move an inch. It stays ‘grounded’.
The ship B crew turn on their 109000 HP engine and move away quickly from Tokyo. They neither have GPS nor hand-drawn maps. Some of the veterans on board say that “if they head east straight, they can spot something and make amends along…”. They keep moving, but since they have no way to know their exact direction, they follow a trajectory slightly north of the Hawaiian Islands and end up reaching San Diego.
The ship C with its modest turbines and limited fuel tank start its journey. The crew aware of its limitations, plan to make stops at several places along the way. Now, this isn’t the route with the least distance, neither is it through entirely calm waters and by no means is it the fastest. They take their time and even by their calculations they get delayed by 4 days but make it to Hawaii!
If you have been reading this blog for some time now, you already know where this is headed to! The navigation systems are the goals that orient us or give us a sense of direction, while the propellers are the systems that move us from a position to another.
Now, which of the two is more important? Even with the high-tech navigation, ship A could only contemplate movement but made absolutely no progress. And the ship B, well, certainly was moving and perhaps the fastest; unfortunately, still missed its destination by a huge margin. Maybe they could give it another shot and try to turn in ‘some’ way and hope to make it to Hawaii. But again, only hope, only luck.
The ship C, not only ran their propellers whenever they could but also kept tracking their position, their trajectory. And very well, made it to the other side.
The straight answer is that we need both, goals and systems to coexist and function together. While setting only goals and dreaming is the best way of assuring failure, setting up systems can make you move somewhere. But the trick many people miss here is to verify whether the systems adopted are in synchronization with the goals or not. They could be the best systems for someone but are they the best for you? Following Arnold’s workout is a system of the highest order, but maybe for a person aspiring to be a bodybuilder and not for a person aspiring to be a neurosurgeon, who only desires to have a fit body.
Now the ship examples were all extreme but good enough to make the writing on the wall clear. We all have some sense of direction of our goals and some kind of system in place. Maybe one of them is a little more organized than the other. As long as the systems are running, and as long as they are oriented towards the goals, you are on track.
Yes, there is then a scope to improvise the existing system, a possibility of enhancing the goals; perhaps that’s the way to go faster, definite and on target.
You need them both and both of them synchronously. So knit your goals together with the threads of systems!
