"Goals are for Losers" (Do This Instead)

Nugget by Scott Adams

Jul 24, 2026

👋 Hey friend,

I’m reading the book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams.

One of my favorite nuggets I got from the book is the idea that in order to progress and be successful at anything, is much more useful to focus on systems rather than goals…

👤 Doers

💡Nugget

🟠 Scott Adams:
Throughout my career, I’ve had my antennae up looking for examples of people who use systems versus goals. In most cases, as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways.
To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That’s literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose ten pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach the goal—if you reach it at all—feeling as if you are short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary. That feeling wears on you. In time, it becomes heavy and uncomfortable. It might even drive you out of the game.
If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or set new goals and reenter the cycle of permanent pre-success failure.
…
Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best and permanent failure at worst, if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The “goals” people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people feel good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.
The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavors. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.
For our purposes, let’s say a goal is a specific objective that you either achieve or don’t sometime in the future. A system is something you do on a regular basis that increases your odds of happiness in the long run. If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.
Language is messy, and I know some of you are thinking that exercising every day sounds like a goal. The common definition of goals would certainly allow that interpretation. For our purposes, let’s agree that goals are a reach-it-and-be-done situation, whereas a system is something you do on a regular basis with a reasonable expectation that doing so will get you to a better place in your life. Systems have no deadlines, and on any given day, you probably can’t tell if it’s moving you in the right direction.
My proposition is that if you study people who succeed, you will see that most of them follow systems, not goals.

This idea of having systems rather than goals ties well with Paul Graham’s essay “How to Do Great Work”…

🟠 Paul Graham:
Great work happens by focusing consistently on something you're genuinely interested in. When you pause to take stock, you're surprised how far you've come.

The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.
(Source: How to Do Great Work)

I resonated with this idea from Paul Graham because that’s exactly what I try to do: I try to get something done every day, however small. And in order to make sure I do not violate this system, I have a few other systems:

(1) Never drink alcohol before 8pm.

(2) Never say yes to any plans before lunch time (unless it’s an important family event or something extremely necessary).

(3) In the case I get hangover (it’s never planned), at least I’ll spend the morning reading a book and thinking.

Of course all of this is ideal. Sometimes I do violate these systems depending on the circumstances. But it’s rare.