This is from the cartoonist, Scott Adams, as quoted in The Farnam Street blog (Farnam Street is regularly excellent, by the way.):
“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.
…
[O]ne should have a system instead of a goal. The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavours. 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.
…
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 are feeling good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction …”
This is great insight. Instead of aiming for some goal out there, arbitrary as most goals are, aim instead to be the kind of person and do the kinds of things that someone who achieves those goals would be and do. And then don’t obsess on the goals. Just do the work and live the life. Act as if you are who you want to be.
A daily or weekly routine, a consistent application of even small habits, will transform our lives more effectively than striving for some overwhelmingly large goal.
Excellent Journey 
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