It’s that time of year when everyone makes New Year’s resolutions and sets goals, but most of the time people spend on it is wasted. When I was younger, I was very goal-focused and always spent days, even weeks, meticulously planning my goals and dreaming big, but most of those early goals went unachieved.

The problem I ran into was that I thought setting my mind and focus were enough. The myth is that if you set goals and focus on the outcomes, you will be more likely to achieve them. Focus is helpful, but more is needed.

A goal without plans and meticulously constructed systems is little more than a hope or a dream.

Goal setting is helpful in choosing a direction in which to travel, but the daily systems you create for its achievement are what will drive success. Bigger and more complicated goals may require multiple systems.

Spend 1% of your time on setting the direction (the goal) and 99% of your time on a system that will take you where you want to go. Big and complex goals may require months or even years of effort or a very long period of time. For example, when I was writing my book, it took me hundreds of writing sessions over more than two years to get the book through the publishing process. The goal was to publish a best-selling book, but the system behind the book was what delivered success.

By focusing on the process and not obsessing over results, you will make far more progress. A poor system can deliver pleasing results in the short term, but over the long term, you must have a well-designed system to deliver your results.

If you set a goal of losing 10 pounds, that is great, but weighing yourself every morning is not going to help you actually lose the weight. Your current weight is a result of your eating and exercise systems. The real gold will come when you plan every meal, weigh all of your food, and exercise three to five times a week.

This is why I am not a fan of the entire manifestation of the “Secret” movement. People tend to focus on outcomes with some odd hope that the universe will deliver something to them without focus, labor, and passion, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The achievement of big goals follows long bouts of hard work.

Until next week!