In 2013, Scott Adams introduced a reframe in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big that fundamentally changed how people think about achievement. The reframe was simple but revolutionary: “Systems are better than goals.”
Adams writes in Reframe Your Brain that this concept, along with the related idea of talent stacking, “changed the world.” That might sound like hyperbole until you notice how thoroughly these ideas have permeated the advice of nearly everyone in the business of giving advice. The language of systems thinking has become so ubiquitous that people often don’t realize where it originated.
The distinction matters because most people are still operating under a goal-based framework that sets them up for continuous feelings of failure, even as they make genuine progress. Understanding the difference between systems and goals—and more importantly, implementing a systems-based approach—can transform not just your productivity but your entire psychological experience of life.
What Goals Actually Do to Your Psychology
The traditional success narrative centers on goal-setting. Want to lose weight? Set a goal of losing 20 pounds. Want career advancement? Set a goal of making partner or reaching a specific salary. Want to improve relationships? Set a goal of finding a life partner by age 30.
This framework seems logical until you examine what it does to your daily psychological state. Adams points out a crucial flaw: “A big downside of long-term goals without systems is that every day you do not meet the goal, you are in a mental state of something like failure.”
Think about that weight loss goal. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds, then every single day for weeks or months, you wake up having not yet achieved your goal. You’re in a deficit state, perpetually falling short. Even if you’re making progress—losing a pound a week, developing healthier habits—your goal-oriented framework keeps you in a state of “not there yet.”
This creates what psychologists call a hedonic treadmill of achievement. You’re always chasing the next milestone, and the arrival point—even when you reach it—provides only temporary satisfaction before you set another goal and return to the deficit state.
The psychological toll of this approach compounds over time. Many people develop a persistent background feeling that they’re not where they’re supposed to be, that they’re behind, that they’re failing at life. Not because they actually are failing, but because their measurement framework is designed to emphasize what’s missing rather than what’s happening.
What Systems Provide Instead
Adams defines a system as “something you do every day to create good options for yourself in the future.” The key difference from a goal is that a system is something you execute now, not something you achieve later. And that shift changes everything about your psychological experience.
Take that weight loss example again. A goal-based approach says: “I want to lose 20 pounds.” A systems-based approach says: “I exercise daily and continuously learn what foods are good for me.”
With the system, you succeed every single day that you follow it. You went to the gym? Success. You learned something new about nutrition? Success. You chose the healthier option at lunch? Success. The daily experience becomes one of continuous winning rather than continuous falling short.
Adams emphasizes this point: “You can work your system every day, confident it will produce results. That’s continuous winning. It feels great.” The emotional difference is profound. Instead of measuring yourself against a distant target, you measure yourself against whether you executed your system today. And that measurement is entirely within your control.
This doesn’t mean systems guarantee any specific outcome. You might follow an exercise and nutrition system and lose 15 pounds instead of 20, or lose the weight more slowly than hoped. But psychologically, you’re in a fundamentally different position. You’re succeeding at your system, and the results are a natural consequence rather than a source of daily judgment.
Systems Create Options, Goals Limit Them
Beyond the psychological benefits, systems have a strategic advantage over goals: they create multiple paths to success rather than specifying a single endpoint. Adams illustrates this with education: “Getting a college education is a system because it gives you multiple career options. You might have a general sense of where your career will go, but you are (usually) not over-specifying it.”
Compare this to a goal-oriented approach: “I’m going to college to become a lawyer.” That goal narrows your focus, potentially causing you to miss better opportunities that emerge during your education. It also sets you up for a binary success/failure outcome—either you become a lawyer (success) or you don’t (failure).
The systems approach says: “I’m acquiring skills and knowledge that will create opportunities.” This leaves you open to discovering that you’re more interested in business than law, or that an unexpected opportunity emerges that’s better than anything you could have planned.
Adams contrasts a plumber who learns their trade (a goal-oriented approach that limits options) with a plumber who also learns business skills and other trades to potentially become a general contractor (a systems approach that creates options). Both might end up successful, but the systems thinker has positioned themselves for multiple types of success.
This flexibility matters tremendously in a rapidly changing world. The career you’re training for might not exist in a decade. The relationship model you’re pursuing might not fit who you become. The fitness goal you set might prove irrelevant to your actual health needs. Systems adapt; goals become obsolete.
The Talent Stack as a System
Adams’s second major contribution to success culture is the concept of talent stacking, which he positions as a specific type of system. Rather than becoming excellent at one skill, you acquire a collection of skills that work well together and make you rare and valuable.
“A talent stack is a collection of skills that work well together to make you valuable and rare in a wide variety of ways,” Adams writes. “This is far different from the classic advice about focusing on being the best at some specific skill.”
Adams uses his own career as the primary example. He’s not the best cartoonist, the best writer, or the best business strategist. But the combination of drawing skills, humor writing, business knowledge, public speaking ability, and understanding of persuasion makes him uniquely valuable. Each individual skill might be modest, but the combination is powerful and rare.
The talent stack approach is inherently a system, not a goal. You don’t set out to acquire exactly these five skills and no others. You continuously add skills that seem interesting or useful, paying attention to how they might combine with what you already know. The outcomes emerge from the process rather than being specified in advance.
For someone starting their career, this reframe is liberating. You don’t need to identify the one perfect career path and pursue it with single-minded focus. You can acquire skills opportunistically—taking classes your employer offers, learning from interesting people, developing capabilities that seem useful—and trust that valuable combinations will emerge.
When Goals Make Sense
Adams isn’t absolutist about avoiding goals. He acknowledges situations where goals are appropriate: “Goals are not worthless. They come in handy for any situation in which the objective is clear and there are no just-as-good options. Examples include scoring high on a test, winning a sporting competition, and running a marathon.”
The pattern is clear: goals work when the endpoint is well-defined, the path is straightforward, and success is binary. In these contexts, the motivational benefit of a specific target outweighs the psychological cost of the deficit state.
But even in these situations, Adams suggests layering a system underneath the goal. Training for a marathon? The system might be “run regularly and continuously learn about endurance athletics.” The marathon is the goal, but the system ensures you’re getting value regardless of whether you finish or hit your time target.
For the complex, ambiguous domains of life—career, relationships, health, personal development—systems thinking dominates. These areas are too multifaceted, too unpredictable, and too important to reduce to binary success/failure outcomes.
The Psychological Architecture of Systems
What makes systems work psychologically goes deeper than just feeling successful each day. Systems create what psychologists call “process orientation” rather than “outcome orientation.” Process orientation is associated with better performance, greater resilience, and higher long-term achievement across nearly every domain studied.
When you’re process-oriented, setbacks don’t devastate you because they’re just information about adjusting your system. You didn’t fail; you discovered something about what doesn’t work. When you’re outcome-oriented, setbacks feel like personal failures because you’re measuring yourself against the endpoint.
Adams describes this explicitly in the context of his career: “I’ve failed at most of the things I’m qualified for while succeeding at many things I’m not qualified for.” With a goal-oriented mindset, each failure would have been crushing. With a systems mindset, each failure was just feedback that informed the next experiment.
This resilience is perhaps the most valuable aspect of systems thinking. Life inevitably includes rejection, failure, and disappointment. The question is whether these experiences destroy your momentum or simply redirect it. Systems thinking facilitates redirection; goal fixation tends toward destruction.
Systems in Different Life Domains
Adams provides examples of how systems thinking applies across life domains, and these examples reveal the versatility of the framework.
Career: Instead of “make partner by 35” (goal), the system is “continuously build a talent stack of complementary skills while networking extensively and delivering more than expected.” This system creates multiple paths to career success, not just the one specified by your goal.
Fitness: Instead of “lose 20 pounds” (goal), the system is “be active every day and continuously learn about nutrition.” You succeed whenever you execute the system, and the weight loss becomes a natural consequence rather than a daily judgment.
Relationships: Instead of “find a spouse by 30” (goal), the system is “meet new people regularly while working on becoming the best version of myself.” The system creates opportunities rather than fixating on a specific outcome.
Finance: Instead of “save $100,000” (goal), the system is “spend less than I earn and continuously improve my income-generating skills.” The system creates financial health as an ongoing state rather than a binary achievement.
The pattern is consistent: goals specify endpoints; systems specify processes. Goals create pressure and binary outcomes; systems create sustainable practices and multiple success paths.
The Momentum Factor
One of the most powerful aspects of systems thinking that Adams emphasizes is momentum. When you execute your system today, you’re not just succeeding at today’s task—you’re building momentum that makes tomorrow easier.
This is why Adams recommends starting any big project by asking: “What’s the smallest thing I can do today that moves me in the right direction?” That small thing builds momentum. Tomorrow, the slightly bigger thing feels more achievable. Systems create compounding progress.
Adams describes writing his book using this approach: “Take a tiny step, look for fuel. Take another step, look for more fuel. Keep going until you are done.” Each small success fuels the next action, creating a self-sustaining cycle.
Goals work differently. They create motivation through the pull of the endpoint, which can feel energizing at first but often fades as the goal feels distant or difficult. Systems create motivation through the satisfaction of today’s execution and the visible accumulation of progress.
The Flexibility to Pivot
Perhaps the most important advantage of systems over goals in the modern world is the ability to pivot without psychological damage. When circumstances change—and they always do—systems adapt while goals become obsolete.
Adams experienced this firsthand when developing Dilbert. His initial goal might have been “get syndicated.” Once syndicated, a new goal: “appear in major newspapers.” As the media landscape shifted, goals like newspaper distribution became less relevant. But his system—continuously create quality content, build an audience, adapt to new platforms—remained valuable regardless of changing circumstances.
Someone with rigid goals about newspaper syndication might have felt like a failure as that industry declined. Someone with a system focused on audience-building and content creation simply shifted platforms. Same person, same work, radically different psychological experience.
This flexibility is crucial for long-term success. The specific outcomes you want at 25 might be irrelevant at 35. The career path that seemed perfect before AI automation might need complete revision. The relationship model that fit earlier life stages might need adjustment. Systems allow you to navigate these changes; goals often create resistance to necessary adaptation.
Implementing Systems Thinking
For readers wanting to shift from goals to systems, Adams’s approach suggests several practical steps. First, examine your current goals and ask what system would create similar or better outcomes. “I want to lose 20 pounds” becomes “I will be active daily and continuously improve my nutrition knowledge.”
Second, design systems that you can actually execute consistently. A system that requires perfect execution will fail. Better to have a modest system you actually do than an ambitious system you abandon. Adams’s gym system includes days where he puts on workout clothes, drives to the gym, realizes he doesn’t have it in him, and goes home—but still counts it as success because he maintained the system.
Third, measure system execution, not outcomes. Did you do the thing today? That’s your metric. The outcomes will take care of themselves if you consistently execute good systems.
Finally, remain open to adjusting systems based on what you learn. Systems aren’t rigid. They’re experimental frameworks that evolve as you discover what works and what doesn’t.
The Cultural Shift
Adams’s systems-vs-goals framework has spread throughout business and self-improvement culture because it solves a problem most people experience but couldn’t articulate: the disconnect between working hard and feeling successful. You could be making genuine progress while feeling like a failure because your goal-based framework emphasized the gap rather than the growth.
The reframe to systems thinking realigns your psychological experience with your actual progress. You’re succeeding when you execute your systems, and outcomes emerge naturally from consistent execution. This creates sustainable motivation, better resilience, and greater flexibility—all crucial for long-term achievement.
Most importantly, it changes the daily subjective experience from one of deficit and striving to one of continuous success and compounding progress. You wake up knowing exactly what success looks like today: execute your systems. Do that consistently, and the outcomes you want become increasingly likely, often in forms you couldn’t have predicted when you started.
That’s why this reframe changed the world. It offers a better operating system for achievement—one aligned with human psychology and the unpredictable nature of modern life. Goals have their place, but systems are how you build a successful life.
These insights are drawn from Scott Adams’s “Reframe Your Brain: The User Interface for Happiness and Success,” which offers a comprehensive framework for reprogramming how you approach success, health, relationships, and reality itself.