I believe in lifelong learning. 

I have continually enrolled in something to uplevel myself, and I always have a personal development book on the go.  

Over the last couple of months, I have finished two separate books that said the same thing.  

Goals are good, but you need more than goals to get to where you want to go.  

I agree.

I believe that goals are necessary.  Without them, I don’t know where to go.  However, goals only provide you with a direction or a destination; they don’t tell you how to get there.  

In the planning workshop, I talk about “The Map.” I blogged about the map in October 2021; check out that blog to learn more.  The Map is the step-by-step plan to get from A to B.  It’s for your goal as google maps is for a trip.  

I find most people skip this step in the planning process. 

In the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, he wrote that goals are about the results you want to achieve while systems are about the process that leads to those results.   Goals set a direction, and systems make progress.   If I’m honest with you, I read this small section of the book a few times.  I agreed with what a goal was, but I needed to digest the part about systems and processes.  

I love systems and processes.  Good systems and processes lead to higher profit, more freedom, and create space for creativity. Yet, systems and processes are designed for things you repeatedly do. 

For this reason, I needed to assess what James Clear meant about systems and processes in the context of goals.  A way to achieve a goal might be something you would repeat over and over again.  (I’m thinking sales or marketing processes here) but it may also be something that you will only do once.  

For example:  setting up a podcast would be a one-time goal.  Producing the weekly podcast would become a process.  Something that you would do over and over.  

Then I thought about the planning system that I teach in our planning workshop.  The 90-day planning workshop is a system itself.  In the workshop, I teach a process of reflection and review (something else James Clear and I agree on – perhaps a blog for another day).  I also introduce participants to use their Map to create monthly, weekly, and daily intentions. 

I then realized that these were processes designed to work together to help you create results.    

If the steps to create the results are repeatable, recurring tasks, then yes, build separate processes for them.  If the steps are one-time, then the processes and strategies I share will ensure that the steps end up in your commitment list for the week and then into your daily intentions – creating results. 

After reflection, I agreed with James Clear comment.  

These processes I teach are essentially habits.  Good habits.  Habits that will help you create results.

Are your habits creating a path to success? 

The habits you repeat every day laregly determine your health, wealth and happiness.

James Clear