In this post, I’m going to show you how you can win every day and, more importantly, how to drastically improve your chances of winning big in life. You may be surprised to learn that in order to improve your odds of winning big in the long run, you’ll need to ditch—wait for it—your goals!
Scott Adams, in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, presents the concept of goals vs. systems. He goes so far as to say that goals are for losers. Systems are better than goals. And winners have systems.
When I read the book in 2016, the idea of having systems instead of goals potently resonated with me. It changed my whole perspective on how I was living my own life with respect to self-improvement. It is perhaps the single most important mindset shift I have had that has filled me with unending optimism.
Let’s break down this whole idea of goals vs. systems by first talking about happiness and what truly makes us feel fulfilled.
The Sources of Happiness
Broadly, happiness comes from two main sources:
Random Good Things Happening
When something unexpectedly good happens, you feel happy.
The Problem: These good moments aren’t predictable or guaranteed. They come by chance, and much of that is down to luck. So, this type of happiness is accidental.
Success (Achieving Something)
You feel happy when you accomplish what you’ve set out to do.
The Problem: This also doesn’t happen every day. Goals are often long-term, and success only comes once you’ve reached them, which means most days, you’re working toward something but not quite succeeding yet.
Accidental happiness—one which arises out of random good things happening to you—is out of our control. So we won’t talk about accidental happiness anymore. That leaves us with happiness from success. And that’s where systems are better than goals.
As I said, on most days, you are working towards your goals, which is not the same as success. Success is when you finally achieve a goal. So with goals, you succeed only when you achieve a goal—if you achieve it at all. But what if you replace goals with systems?
Why Success Matters
Let’s assume you’re someone who sets and achieves goals. You feel happy when you succeed, and that success gives you a sense of purpose. This feeling of accomplishment propels you forward.
Success is critical because it gives your life meaning. Without it, you might feel lost or aimless. But what happens when you’re chasing a goal for a long time without achieving it? That’s where the trouble begins.
The Downside of Goals
With goals, you only feel successful when you achieve them. The problem is, most of the time, you’re just working toward them—or worse, failing.
Since feeling successful is connected to a sense of meaning in life, you need to maintain the feeling of being successful. Only then would your self-worth and motivation stay up. Goals don’t give you a consistent sense of success. And believe it or not, most people don’t achieve many of their goals, which can be a real blow to their self-worth.
For example, if your goal is to become a fitness trainer five years from now, you’ll focus solely on that. You might ignore other opportunities along the way or miss out on developing different skills, like learning to play the guitar or writing. And what if something happens to derail your fitness career—an injury, illness, or something else outside your control? In five years, if you don’t achieve that goal, you might feel like you’ve wasted your time and missed out on other chances.
The reality is, in today’s fast-changing world, setting long-term goals can actually work against you. Technology evolves quickly, and what seems like a good goal today might not be so great in a few years. In that case, even if you achieve your goal, it might not feel as fulfilling as you expected.
Scott Adams compares it to trying to hit a moving target with a single arrow—you’re bound to miss more often than not. The odds of success in a meaningful way are dismal.
The Power of Systems
As Scott Adams puts it:
A system involves some things that you do every day as a routine that increase your odds of achieving success in a non-specific way in the future.
It means that, as a systems person, you do a variety of things every day. My current system, for instance, includes working out for 45 minutes, practicing guitar for 15 minutes, reading for an hour, and so on. These aren’t goals—they’re part of a routine. And since I enjoy these activities, it doesn’t take much willpower to stick with them.
I’m not aiming to become a fitness trainer, a professional guitarist, or a writer. I just enjoy doing these things as hobbies. But since they’re part of my system, I do them consistently without feeling pressured to achieve a specific goal.
If I set a goal, say, to become a fitness trainer, there is a chance I will not achieve it and thus fail. But in the systems approach, I don’t have a goal, so there’s no way I can fail. My system only requires me to do certain things I already do in little portions every day. And since they are things I’m interested in, I will most likely succeed in doing them consistently.
So then, which one is easier and more likely to make me succeed tomorrow? Carrying the uncertain goal to be achieved years down the line, or adhering to the system that requires me to do small things I’m interested in?
And systems can evolve. You can drop old hobbies and pick up new ones without feeling like you’ve failed. The key is to focus on activities you genuinely enjoy and can do consistently.
The Long Run
When you stick to a system, you’ll naturally get better at the things you practice. Over time, your chances of hitting it big in one of those areas will increase. You may not know which one will pay off, but by improving multiple skills, you’re giving yourself more chances for success.
In the long run, you’ll find that you weren’t limited by your goals. Instead, you’ll have developed expertise in multiple areas. And as Scott Adams points out, being good at a few things gives you a much better shot at success than trying to be the best at just one.
If you don’t have a goal, you can’t fail. And with systems, you can be more certain than a person with goals about winning big someday.