How to Make Your Goals Bulletproof
Use these 5 rules to set up daily systems that simply can't be stopped.
Systems guarantee your goals. In other words, they take the mystery and daily wondering of “What should I do next?” out of the process – and give you a repeatable framework for making sure you get where you want to go.
In the past year, I’ve doubled down on building systems in my life to achieve goals like:
Growing my social media audience
Growing this newsletter here on Substack
Building a stronger, more resilient body through weightlifting
Along the way, I’ve found five rules that make or break the success of the systems in my life. Here they are – so you can take a look and apply them if they resonate for you!
Rule #1: Make It Flexible 🤸♂️
Successful systems are built like skyscrapers: They’re made to wave and bend a bit so a big storm doesn’t come along and turn them into dust.
If you don’t build flexibility into your systems, the fierce winds of day-to-day living will topple them before you can get any momentum.
For me, flexibility mostly comes down to the timing of my systems. Here are a few examples of what this looks like:
With Twitter, I can sit down to write tweets whenever it works best for me in a given week – just as long as I never miss a day.
With Substack, I can draft, edit, and ship my newsletter any time throughout the week – as long as it goes out before the end of the day on Sunday.
With working out, I can do my four big lifts (bench press, deadlift, military press, and squats) any day of the week – and sometimes even double them up if I don’t have time for separate workouts – as long as I get all four done by Saturday.
Life happens. For me at least, it’s not always easy to hit the same weekly schedule, so having this flexibility means I can still be consistent no matter what the week throws at me.
Rule #2: Keep It Minimal 🤏
The key here is to set a low bar for what “done” looks like. You need the bar to be low enough so that you can still check the box even if life gets crazy.
For me, that looks like:
With Twitter, my absolute minimum is to post one tweet per day (I usually do two).
With Substack, my absolute minimum is one email a week. It doesn’t have to be perfect, masterfully edited, or earth-shattering – it just has to go out.
With working out, my absolute minimum is three sets of each of my main lifts every week. It doesn’t have to be heavy, it doesn’t have to be four separate workouts – I just need to do those four lifts.
The nice thing about low bars is it’s easy to exceed them, which always feels good. Plus, low bars make it easier to rack up streaks, which only adds to my motivation.
Rule #3: Make It Trackable ✅
Like it or not, tracking works. It’s just like management guru Peter Drucker says: “What gets measured, gets managed.”
I’ve never been a huge fan of ultra-detailed tracking, but I can’t deny a little tracking keeps me honest, focused, and committed to my daily systems. Here are some examples:
For social media, I have a spreadsheet where I log my new followers (and updated total followers) on each social network where I’m active every Saturday. I also have a list of recurring tasks in Asana for other social media tasks.
For Substack, I have a weekly process in Asana for getting my newsletter out the door on time and making sure I cover all the bases.
For workouts, I use a simple wall calendar right next to my home gym to keep track of my workouts every week.
The best thing about tracking is that it gives me a visual that undeniably answers the question: “Am I on track or off-track?” There’s no wiggle room when it’s staring me right in the face.
Rule #4: Make It Scaleable 📈
Scalability is how you add leverage to your systems. The more you scale, the greater the impact your systems will eventually have.
The thing is, when you’re living a busy life with limited time for these personal systems every week, scaling doesn’t feel so easy. So for me, the key is to simply do what I can every week, while keeping scalability in mind. Examples:
With social media, I look for easy ways to repurpose my content, rather than always writing from scratch. Recently, that’s included jumping from Twitter to LinkedIn, where I’ve been mostly reposting past tweets 3x per week.
With Substack, I’m also repurposing content by reposting past newsletter issues on Medium. Will probably also start doing this soon for Twitter threads.
With working out, scaling is pretty simple: For now the game is to keep adding weight, which I have in my home gym.
Rule #5: Keep It Meaningful 💜
This one probably should have been Rule #1, because it really is the most important. The truth is, your systems are bound to fail unless the results they’re building feel truly meaningful to you.
Here’s what keeps me going with my current systems:
With social media, I see the endless opportunities that come with building an online presence. I want a piece of that magic, and I’m not gonna miss my chance.
With Substack, I see the value of building an email list – to share deeper ideas with readers like you, and break free of constant algo changes on social media.
With working out, I’ve felt the value of having a strong, agile, resilient body – as well as the consequences of being inconsistent. I’m committed to having the best experience I can while I’m in this body, so there’s no way to go but…to the gym!
So, there you have it: A peek behind the curtain at the systems I’m using to stay consistent towards my goals. I hope some of these examples come in handy for you!
I’m planning to use these five rules to add more systems to my life this year, and I’ll let you know how it goes. Let me know if there’s an idea here you’d like me to go deeper on in a future newsletter!
Until next week,
–Riley
P.S. For hands-on, personalized coaching on your personal growth, career growth, or copywriting, feel free to schedule a 1:1 coaching call.
Loving this, Riley. I think this piece resonated with me, because shit, I need more flexibility in my posting. I'm also curious about you Asana to check all the boxes for your weekly newsletter. Let's chat!