Beyond Resolutions — Building Systems for the New Year That Actually Work
Tomorrow’s the start of the New Year. Today I grabbed a sheet of paper and listed down my top 10 goals for the new year. I don’t know about you, but the chances of my losing this piece of paper and forgetting all about my goals next week are pretty high. The problem with this method is that my goals seem so abstract, so intangible, and so unreachable without steps and systems in place to reach them. Writing “I want to lose 20 pounds by December 2026” solidifies your intention, but how do you exactly go from point A to point B? You need a system, a protocol of steps and solutions you put in place to actually reach your goal.
Atomic Habits contains this insightful quote: “You don’t rise to the level of our goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Reaching your goals is a step by step process, not a jump from where you start to where you end up. Daily habits incrementally inch you closer to your destination. Teleportation isn’t a thing, not now, maybe in the future, but even then, when you think of teleportation, is it possible to transport all the atoms of your body from your starting location to your ending location with just a magical press of a button? Definitely not, according to quantum mechanics and the laws of physics. If we want to be serious about inventing teleportation, we have to understand the step-by-step process of it — as well as other goals.
The Goal vs. System Distinction
If you really want to achieve your goals, you’re going to have to illustrate what exactly you want to do. Goals set the big picture. Whenever you want to set a date with a friend, you have to research restaurants on Yelp, or revisit a favorite restaurant. Then you have to enter the restaurant into your Google Maps. Google Maps will then return to you “directions” on how to get there via public transit or car. That’s the system you have to operate.
Sometimes when I’m lazy, I just use AI. I enter into ChatGPT or Google Gemini or Claude even and ask them to give me a system for achieving so-and-so goal. I mean, sure, they’re going to return a really detailed, kinda awesome system, but will I actually follow it? Your best bet is to do some brainstorming, some research, and come up with your own system. And put it into place, through daily habits.
If your goal is to lose twenty pounds, your system could be —
Walk 10 steps every day.
Or run for 1 hour 5 days a week.
And eat no more than 1500 calories a day.
Also do Pilates.
Maybe yoga?
Don’t forget to intermittently fast!
Sweet, I got my system down. It’s going to be hard at first to implement this system, but you have to take the first step. Today. Or tomorrow, technically, because tomorrow’s January 1, a crucial day.
You have to remember not to focus primarily on your goals — which are a one liner in your journal that set your intention but is absolutely just floating in space since you don’t have a system to anchor it. Goals are like True/False statements. Either you check them off as you have completed them and label them as True or the opposite — you’ve failed to accomplish your goal. If you fail, you just shrug your shoulders, because the goal wasn’t really anything concrete even with the New Age visualization practice.
So anchor yourself. Build the systems you need to build the house you can then take a picture of at the end of the construction process. When you build the house slowly and daily, you’re creating something concrete, and the progress will give you a feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment. Progress becomes inevitable, even if it’s slower than you’d like.
The Six Pillars: Where to Build Your Systems
Life isn’t just one dimension; it consists of multiple domains that must be in balance in order for you to live the quintessential life. Here are 6 areas where you can build systems in:
Physical Health
You must take care to exercise, sleep properly, eat right, and take preventive measures to guard against illness. Sleep consistently 7-9 hours a day, exercise daily, plan your emails, take your supplements. Once I started exercising, I felt myself more motivated to take care of the rest of my life.
Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
This includes practices that enhance your mental and emotional health. I find that journaling and creative pursuits such as art and writing help relieve emotional energy and maintain good psychological health. Protect your mental health and cultivate a space for you to relax and recharge.
Relationships
People are important. Spend quality time with loved ones and invest the appropriate amount of effort and energy with them. Schedule date nights, hang outs, or even phone calls.
Financial Health
Develop a system for budgeting, saving, investing, and managing debt so you can have financial security and freedom. Having a good financial system in place is crucial to building wealth and ensuring independence.
Career
Professional and intellectual growth is important for cultivating your career and your education. Make room for continuous learning, skill-building, networking, and advancing in your field.
Spiritual Life
We as humans function the best when we know our purpose in this life. Religion provides a way for us to meet that purpose and to have a sense of something greater than us to fill us with gratitude and motivation. Bible study, meditation, and prayer are channels for spiritual expression.
Start With Brutal Honesty
Before building any system, you need to take inventory of the current state of things in your life. Track how much time you spend on different activities during your day and week. Track your energy and mood throughout the day. Track your current habits. Look at the six pillars and identify your strengths and weaknesses in each area. Be honest about imbalance in your life.
Make It Ridiculously Easy to Start
Most systems fail because they are too ambitious. You want dramatic transformation and so you design dramatic systems. That’s not how systems work. You have to build up your system from ground up, so start with tiny steps. And then build on those steps, scaling up your habits to match the level of your systems.
Tracking
Track, track, track. What gets measured gets managed. Pull out a blank piece of paper and start accounting the amount of time and habits you do each day. You can use a calendar and make checkmarks. Tracking creates awareness and a quantifiable measure that allows you to visualize your progress. Visualization is a powerful tool and not to be taken lightly. It will also improve motivation to inspire behavioral change.
Different areas lend themselves to different tracking methods. Physical health might use an app or fitness tracker. Financial health might involve weekly budget reviews. The key is finding metrics that actually matter, not just what's easiest to measure.
Focus on Identity, Not Outcomes
Rather than focusing on outcomes, focus on changing or belonging to an identity. What kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be a person who exercises daily and takes care of your body and is fit? Do you want to be a writer? Do you want to be a pianist? Do you want to be a Youtuber? Don’t chase specific outcomes but be inspired by the personas you want to become. Match your actions and habits with your identity.
Think about who you want to be in each of the six pillars. What does that person do daily? What do they value? How do they spend their time? Then design systems that let you live as that person, starting today, even in small ways.
Sample Systems Across the Pillars
To make this concrete, here's what integrated systems might look like:
Morning routine: Wake at 6 AM, ten minutes of prayer or meditation (spiritual), twenty-minute walk (physical), healthy breakfast while reviewing daily goals (mental/physical). This single routine touches multiple areas.
Weekly financial review: Every Sunday evening, thirty minutes reviewing spending, updating budget, and checking progress toward savings goals (financial).
Relationship time blocks: Tuesday evenings reserved for date night, Saturday mornings for calling parents, first Sunday of the month for hosting friends (relationships).
Professional development: Read one industry article during lunch, Friday afternoons for learning new skills, attend one conference or workshop per quarter (career).
Health maintenance: Meal prep Sundays, gym Monday/Wednesday/Friday mornings, annual physical scheduled every January, therapist appointment every other Thursday (physical and mental health).
Notice how these systems are specific, scheduled, and realistic. They're not dependent on motivation or perfect conditions. They're designed to happen even on ordinary days.
The Long Game
It’s a marathon, not a race. Systems require patience because they take a while to set in place. Transformation is a process. Small improvements compound over time. Being 1% better each day will make you 37x better in a year.
This New Year, resist the temptation to set dramatic goals and hope for the best. Instead, audit the six pillars of your life, identify where you need the most growth, and design systems that make showing up easy, that fit your actual life, and that move you incrementally toward who you want to become. The goals might take care of themselves, but even if they don't materialize exactly as imagined, you'll have become someone better in the process—and that's worth more than any resolution.
Start small. Start today. Start with one area and one tiny system. The person you'll be next December will thank you.
