THE PLATEAU OF LATENT POTENTIAL
FIGURE 2: We often expect progress to be linear. At the very least, we
hope it will come quickly. In reality, the results of our efforts are often
delayed. It is not until months or years later that we realize the true value
of the previous work we have done. This can result in a “valley of
disappointment” where people feel discouraged after putting in weeks or
months of hard work without experiencing any results. However, this work
was not wasted. It was simply being stored. It is not until much later that
the full value of previous efforts is revealed.
All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a
single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and
grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of
breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the
task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at
a time.
But what determines whether we stick with a habit long enough to
survive the Plateau of Latent Potential and break through to the other side?
What is it that causes some people to slide into unwanted habits and enables
others to enjoy the compounding effects of good ones?
FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD
Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life
—getting into better shape, building a successful business, relaxing more
and worrying less, spending more time with friends and family—is to set
specific, actionable goals.
For many years, this was how I approached my habits, too. Each one
was a goal to be reached. I set goals for the grades I wanted to get in school,
for the weights I wanted to lift in the gym, for the profits I wanted to earn in
business. I succeeded at a few, but I failed at a lot of them. Eventually, I
began to realize that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and
nearly everything to do with the systems I followed.
What’s the difference between systems and goals? It’s a distinction I first
learned from Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind the Dilbert comic. Goals
are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes
that lead to those results.
If you’re a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your
system is the way you recruit players, manage your assistant coaches,
and conduct practice.
If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal might be to build a million-dollar
business. Your system is how you test product ideas, hire employees,
and run marketing campaigns.
If you’re a musician, your goal might be to play a new piece. Your
system is how often you practice, how you break down and tackle
difficult measures, and your method for receiving feedback from your
instructor.
Now for the interesting question: If you completely ignored your goals
and focused only on your system, would you still succeed? For example, if
you were a basketball coach and you ignored your goal to win a
championship and focused only on what your team does at practice each
day, would you still get results?
I think you would.
The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be
ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way
to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super
Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true
for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting
goals. Focus on your system instead.
What do I mean by this? Are goals completely useless? Of course not.
Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making
progress. A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time
thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.
Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.
Goal setting suffers from a serious case of survivorship bias. We
concentrate on the people who end up winning—the survivors—and
mistakenly assume that ambitious goals led to their success while
overlooking all of the people who had the same objective but didn’t
succeed.
Every Olympian wants to win a gold medal. Every candidate wants to
get the job. And if successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals,
then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers. It
wasn’t the goal of winning the Tour de France that propelled the British
cyclists to the top of the sport. Presumably, they had wanted to win the race
every year before—just like every other professional team. The goal had
always been there. It was only when they implemented a system of
continuous small improvements that they achieved a different outcome.
Problem #2: Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
Imagine you have a messy room and you set a goal to clean it. If you
summon the energy to tidy up, then you will have a clean room—for now.
But if you maintain the same sloppy, pack-rat habits that led to a messy
room in the first place, soon you’ll be looking at a new pile of clutter and
hoping for another burst of motivation. You’re left chasing the same
outcome because you never changed the system behind it. You treated a
symptom without addressing the cause.
Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That’s the
counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our
results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change
are the systems that cause those results. When you solve problems at the
results level, you only solve them temporarily. In order to improve for good,
you need to solve problems at the systems level. Fix the inputs and the
outputs will fix themselves.
Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness.
The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal,
then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re
continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. I’ve slipped into
this trap so many times I’ve lost count. For years, happiness was always
something for my future self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained
twenty pounds of muscle or after my business was featured in the New York
Times, then I could finally relax.
Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your
goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment. You
mentally box yourself into a narrow version of happiness. This is
misguided. It is unlikely that your actual path through life will match the
exact journey you had in mind when you set out. It makes no sense to
restrict your satisfaction to one scenario when there are many paths to
success.
A systems-first mentality provides the antidote. When you fall in love
with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give
yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system
is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just
the one you first envision.
Problem #4: Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
Finally, a goal-oriented mind-set can create a “yo-yo” effect. Many runners
work hard for months, but as soon as they cross the finish line, they stop
training. The race is no longer there to motivate them. When all of your
hard work is focused on a particular goal, what is left to push you forward
after you achieve it? This is why many people find themselves reverting to
their old habits after accomplishing a goal.
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building
systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-
less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle
of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your
commitment to the process that will determine your progress.
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