Embrace the Process
What I read: Why Choose Process Goals? (Over Outcome-Based Goals) by Ivaylo Durmonski. Published November 19, 2023.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing numerous articles, books, and online content that advocates for reframing the way we think about what it is we claim we want to do in life. Historically, the self-help productivity narrative centers around setting goals.
Goals are comforting. We create them and regardless of the reality we feel like we’re already nearing the goal simply by writing it down. Sadly, not only don’t goals readily translate into action and anticipated outcomes, they often work in the exact opposite way.
I wrote about my mindset change regarding goals in Stop Dangling Carrots. Here’s what I wrote in that article. It syncs nicely with the message of this post’s highlighted article.
In fact, research suggests that focusing on goals too much can have opposite the intended effect. People who visualize their goals are less likely to achieve them. Rather than focus on goals (outcomes, specific targets), it’s typically best to focus on the process.
Ivaylo Durmonski uses the term “process goals.” Focusing on the process is indeed a superior way to approach getting stuff done in our lives rather than the typical goal-setting method. But another way some argue the same case is by encouraging us to adopt systems instead of goals.
In Forget About Setting Goals. Focus on This Instead., author James Clear makes the case for systems.
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.
While those who use the term “process goals” might quibble that it’s not identical to “systems,” I contend they are essentially the same thing.
Durmonski himself championed systems over goals in Systems vs Goals: Why You Need Systems, Not Goals. He acknowledges that systems are a process, or at least a part of the process.
Goals are merely a representation of the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes. The good daily habits that will lead to those results.
Goals help you set direction, but they are nothing on their own. They are focused on a future state.
Systems are about the things you need to do daily, that will make you the person you want to be. They are focused on the present.
I’m not going to put words into Durmonski’s mouth because he might disagree with me, but for my purposes I consider systems and processes similar enough that I think they’re describing the same approach that best propels us towards our future better selves.
These days, I no longer set rigid goals. Whether for exercise and diet, writing output, or managing my finances, I now default to systems that keep me on the paths that lead to the outcomes I want to manifest. Or, just as often the system (process) leads me somewhere entirely unexpected and that’s the true power of systems and processes over goals. We can take advantage of the deviations from the planned goal’s path to discover a better path that suits our needs and desires in ways that exceed the original goal’s intent.
Durmonski alludes to something that author Mark Manson mentioned recently in his “Why Your Favorite Self-Help Book Sucks” video.
The main point of Manson’s video is that most self-help material today is simply a re-packaging of ideas, concepts, and advice that’s been doled out by spiritual and philosophical thought leaders for centuries. The newer packaging provides an alternative context through which the information is delivered and, because of the newer perhaps more appealing packaging, the message lands better on the consumer because a particular slant or context might finally allow the message to be fully absorbed and acted upon.
Let me ask you this. How many times in your life have your parents told you to do something, and you completely ignored them? And then like three months later your friend tells you to do the exact same thing and you’re like, “Oh my god, that’s fucking brilliant.”
See, our receptivity to ideas and advice largely has to do with the context in which we receive it. Who is giving the advice? How we’re feeling when we receive the advice. And yes, how the advice is framed and explained.
But it’s Manson’s statement that self-help ideas are simple but difficult that stood out for me.
Self-help ideas are what I call simple but difficult, i.e., they are easy to understand, but really fucking difficult to actually go do.
This applies to goals versus systems or processes too. Setting goals is a relatively easy thing to do and understand. “I want this. I write this down. Yay, I’m halfway there!” Setting goals is the easy part. The system, the process, the daily engaged slog that moves us a bit forward each day, is the difficult part.
Same applies to many goals we do act on. To use the weight loss goal example like Durmonski does, we set a goal to lose 10 pounds. We do that. We’ve attained the goal. So, as human nature often does, we default back to our previous ways of doing things (in this case, eating) because we’ve reached the set goal.
Process goals (systems) require continuous, ongoing effort. They aren’t one-shot efforts. So, of course they’re more difficult to maintain than the setting of a goal and even more difficult than attaining a short-term goal.
Conversely, process goals require continuous effort. Thus, they are less desirable by the mind that wants to bathe in items that bring immediate sensations and doses of revolutionary pleasure.
Unlike when we set specific goals, Durmonski suggests that when setting process goals (systems, in my preferred vernacular) we embrace an absence of completion. In many cases, you can forget the specific end goal. Don’t even entertain the notion of a final end state. Instead, establish the processes, the systems.
Durmonski offers these steps to setting process goals.
Think about the person you want to be. I like how he says this. Not what do you want to achieve but rather who do you want to be? That’s so much more valuable than simply ticking off accomplished goals. Do you want to be healthier rather than simply having a certain waist size? Do you want to live the life of an artist rather than produce a certain number of works of art? Do you want to build your business to help people or simply to make a certain amount of money?
Think about what can disturb your flow. I like this. Rarely do most of us engage in introspection about our past endeavors to analyze what worked and what didn’t, what obstacles were challenging for us. Recognizing them ahead of time can help the process or system move along unimpeded.
Think about what needs to happen (what needs to change).
So, during this third and final step. After overcoming the initially erupting agony caused by the realization that, “indeed, something needs to change.” You craft a plan for what exactly and at what proportion you should change in your life, depending on your desired new and improved you.
The article ends with some helpful process goal boosters including gradual change, habits, mental toughness, revisions (I call this living iteratively), and how to stay sane while staying on course.
The article concludes by asking the reader if they want a one-time change or do they want a permanent change. I think most of us want our lives to permanently change for the better.
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