Success Is Hard Until You Build Systems Like This

This video is all about how you can

achieve more success in your personal or

professional life by building systems.

So, we're going to talk about the

philosophy of this, why systems are

important, and what the difference is

between people who have systems and

people who don't. And in the second part

of the video, I'm going to go through

five systems that I think you should

totally incorporate into your life if

you haven't already, because they will

drastically drastically increase your

chances of achieving whatever your own

personal definition of success actually

is. And if you're new here, hello. My

name is Ali. I'm a doctor turned

entrepreneur and author of the New York

Times bestseller, Feelgood Productivity.

And this channel is all about the books

and ideas and strategies and tools that

can help us achieve financial freedom,

live life on our own terms, and

ultimately build a life that we love.

So, if that sounds good, you might like

to hit the subscribe button. But now,

let's dive into the video. All right, so

let's start out with a definition. So,

we are all trying to work towards this

thing that we call success. But what the

hell does success actually mean? There

are lots of different definitions.

People have their own like ways of

defining this, but in my opinion, you

would generally consider yourself

successful if you've achieved or if

you're actively working towards goals

that you intrinsically care about. I

would say your life is kind of

successful if you're working towards

those goals in a balanced way. So, for

example, I wouldn't call it massive

success if you know you're

single-mindedly focused on just this one

thing, but then you've like wrecked your

health and your relationships and your

life along the way. I wouldn't

personally think of that as being

success. And finally, success is where

you are actually enjoying the journey

along the way. Because ultimately, you

could have success. You could have the

nicest house. You could have the

fanciest job. You could have the biggest

business. But if you haven't enjoyed the

journey of getting there, it will very

much feel hollow because you'll get to

that destination. And you'll realize

that that is not where happiness and

salvation is actually to be found. Now,

in order to achieve our goals, we

basically need to take a series of

actions. If we take the right sorts of

actions and do them for long enough and

consistently enough, we are more likely

to get to our goals. In order to have a

generally balanced life, we kind of need

a somewhat reasonable diversity of goals

and a therefore diversity of actions

across the different domains of our

life. For example, our professional and

personal life, our work, our health, our

relationships, our hobbies. And in order

to have enjoyment along the way, to be

honest, a lot of it comes from our

approach to things. Like if you approach

stuff in a sort of playful way, if you

approach things in a sincere rather than

serious way, if you have an attitude and

a mindset of non-attachment, like you're

working towards your goals and you're

doing stuff to get there, but you're not

overly attached to any particular

outcome. And of course, if you can drive

intrinsic motivation for the goals that

you're achieving. So rather than being

motivated by external factors like I

don't know fame and money and what your

society thinks you should do or

whatever, you're actually motivated by

intrinsic things like you actually want

to do the thing. Those are generally the

factors that lead to enjoyment. And I

would like to offer for your

consideration in this video that if you

build systems into your life, you are

actually far more likely to achieve your

goals. You're more likely to do the

actions that are required to achieve

your goals. You're more likely to have a

balanced approach to the goals and the

actions that you achieve and take. And

you're also more likely to have

enjoyment along the journey all by

building the right sorts of system into

your life. So now let's try and define

what actually is a system. And you can

define a system as a network of

interconnected things that lead to a

particular result. And those things

could be for example actions or they

could be processes which are really just

like sets of actions or they could be

checklists which are again really just

sets of actions. So what you basically

have is that a system is a step-by-step

set of actions that leads to a

particular result. And again, the whole

point of this video is that I would like

to argue that if you can take the

approach of building more systems into

your life and basically systemizing your

approach to your personal and

professional life in my opinion, you are

far more likely to achieve success,

whatever that definition of success is

for you. Now, I want to give you a

couple of examples here. So, imagine the

world of aviation, right? Like pilots

piloting airplanes. That is an

enormously high stakes situation. And

the entire world of aviation is built

around systems. Systems are the most

important thing. There is a system to

build the appropriate airplane. This is

why basically all airplanes kind of look

the same because people have figured out

a system for making airplanes fly. And

so if you deviate too much from the

system, you end up not building an

airplane that flies. Let's take another

high stakes thing like medicine. I used

to be a doctor in case you didn't know.

And medicine is all about following a

system. Yes, there is some level of like

individual stuff that the doctors do for

example like you know talking to the

patient and make them feel nice. But

when you go and see a doctor and you

talk to them about your problems, the

doctor is actually following a system.

One of the most popular systems is the

Calgary Cambridge method of patient

interviewing, which is like a whole

system for what sort of questions as a

doctor you need to ask the patient in

order to make sure that you've gotten

all the symptoms and all the signs and

all that kind of stuff. When the doctor

examines you and listens to your heart

and like examines your abdomen and all

of that kind of stuff, again, they are

following a system. They are not just

making up as they go along. If they

have lots and lots of experience, then

yes, then you know the systemization of

the thing for doctors starts to become

second nature. they start to pattern

recognize and so they're following a

system even though they often don't

realize they're following a system

because the system has been so drilled

into them that they can now kind of go a

little bit off script. But even then,

even if you're like a surgeon with 50

years of experience and you're like the

world's best person, you still literally

have to fill out a checklist before

every single operation and at the end of

every single operation to make sure that

you've checked the boxes for the

important stuff that the system needs to

make sure the patient has a good result.

Now in our professional lives in these

sort of work environments like in

medicine or in aviation or in like

Formula 1. The idea of building systems

into it is like fairly standard like

with your job you probably have systems

that you have to follow. Systems for HR,

systems for marketing, sales,

operations, finance, the whole shebang.

Businesses are built on the idea of

systems. And I would like to offer for

your consideration that we can totally

build those sorts of systems into our

personal lives as well for pretty much

any goal that we want to work towards.

And there is a really nice visual that I

got from my friend Jeff Sue that sort of

describes the value of a system. So if

you imagine this kind of graph, we've

got effort over here. And so this is

sort of what the line might look like if

you're trying to do stuff without a

system to it. Whereas this is what the

line looks like if you're trying to do

something that does have a system

attached to it. It will take a little

bit more effort in the initial stages to

build the system. But then very quickly

the fact that you are now using a system

i.e. there is a systemized set of

actions or processes or steps that

you're going to follow. It takes

actually quite a lot of work and quite a

lot of effort out of the process of

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for sponsoring this video. So, now let's

get back to it. I'll give you a personal

example. I was doing weight training

when I started out for about 5 years and

I was not following a system. I was

going to the gym a couple of times a

week when I had the time and I was kind

of doing whatever I felt like. I was

going with the flow. And sure, this was

kind of fun. I'd go to the gym with my

friends and stuff, but I made almost no

progress in my physique or in my health

levels or in any of those things because

I wasn't I wasn't following a system.

Recently, I started following a system.

I got a personal trainer and he programs

my workouts and I see him three times a

week at the same time slot. We follow a

similar kind of workout plan with

progressive overload. There is a system

behind the thing and for the first time

in my life, I'm finally seeing progress

when I'm actually at the gym because I'm

following the system. I'm not just

screwing around and making stuff up as I

go along and hoping for the best. I'm

following a prescribed system that

people have already figured out to get

to a desired result, which is to try and

attempt to get a little bit more jacked

and to reduce my visceral fat levels.

Let's take another example. Let's say

you are starting a business and you're

doing sales calls for the first time.

Like you're getting on the phone or a

Zoom call with your prospects and trying

to sell them your product. Not having a

system would be hopping on the call,

making it up as you go along, just sort

of vibing and going with the flow.

Having a system means that you would

have some kind of sales script that you

would follow. You're probably saying a

similar thing each time in the opening

and in the closing. You have a list of

objections that they might say like, you

know, the price is too expensive or I

don't have the time or let me think

about it. And you have defined responses

that you've figured out because you

built a system around it. You have a

system for following up with them. Now,

in that world, the business that follows

a system for their sales process is

going to make way more money compared to

the noob business that has no system

around this because they're just sort of

making stuff up as they go along. And

this is the core idea behind why systems

are way more likely to lead you to

success. Because success, if you define

it as achieving your goals with balance

and enjoyment along the way, is really

just about executing on a set of

actions. Now, if you are making up those

actions every time, depending on how you

feel, you're a lot less likely to get to

any particular goal compared to if you

have a system or a set of processes that

you're following every time.

Now, after all of that opening, I would

like to share with you five systems that

I think if you were to incorporate into

your life would drastically increase

your chances of success. The first

system that I think is incredibly

helpful is some kind of goal setting

system. When it comes to achieving

success, having goals is really

important because then at least you know

what you're aiming for. You don't have

to be wedded to the goals. You don't

have to be attached to them. You don't

have to be upset if you don't manage to

achieve a goal in the time frame that

you wanted. But it's so useful to

actually have a goal to shoot for in the

first place. Now, the way most people do

this is sort of like before they have a

system. It's sort of like, you know, the

new year comes around and they'll sort

of vaguely set some New Year's

resolutions that I want to stop

procrastinating or I want to go to the

gym more often and they just they won't

have a systematic approach to goal

setting. And so what happens is that

they start something and they sort of

meander a little bit and then they quit

or they start something else and they

kind of go all over the place and then

they quit or they set a goal for

something else and then, you know,

they've taken one step and then they

quit. And it's all this sort of like

general kind of mess. when you approach

goal setting as something that you do ad

hoc whenever you have the time and you

just sort of try and figure it out as

you go along. Whereas after you have a

system for goal setting and there are

lots of them out there. I don't really

care which one you use but like you can

just Google it or ask Chad or Claude to

give you a system for goal setting. I've

got my own. It's called the GPS system.

There'll be some videos over there

somewhere on the channel. But after you

have a system for goal setting, you have

a systematic process that you can follow

every 3 months or every year or however

frequently you want to do it. And so,

for example, my process starts with like

vision where there's like a life compass

section where you figure out like what

you actually want your life to look like

very long term and what what are your

core values and that kind of stuff. Then

we turn it into a threeear sketch where

you can use like a vision board or

something to figure out where do you

want to be 3 years from now. And then we

make quarterly quests which are like

90-day goals. Again, all of this stuff

will be linked down below cuz we've got

videos on the channel about all this

stuff, so I'm not going to expand on it

in too much detail. And then after we

figured out our quarterly quests, we

have a weekly process of like

prioritization and reflection that I

call the balanced week blueprint. And

you might think that this stuff is a

little bit much, but like it doesn't

take that long to do. It takes maybe a

couple of hours to do like a life

compass exercise to really figure out

what direction you want to go with your

life. It takes maybe half an hour to do

like a vision board threeear sketch.

This it's quite a fun thing to do as

well. It takes maybe half an hour every

quarter to define quarterly quests. And

what you're doing with this systematic

approach to goal setting is that you're

really trying to decide what are the

small number of goals I actually want to

work towards. And most of us go through

life without really stopping back to

zoom out a little bit and just actually

think about this. It's so easy to get

fixated on the dayto-day. We're too busy

at work and then we get home and then

there's the kids and the stuff and

whatever and there's not enough time and

not enough energy. And yet, if we just

take a few hours once in a while to zoom

out and follow a systematic process for

goal setting, we are far more likely to

end up working towards goals that are

intrinsically motivated, goals that we

actually want to work towards rather

than casually working towards goals that

are just a subconscious result of what

society has told us or what our parents

have told us or what I don't know that a

previous version of oursel decided to

do. The second major system I would

really recommend installing into your

life is some kind of time management

system. And again, I've made videos

about this on the channel. They'll be

linked down below if you want to check

them out. But when it comes to achieving

any goal at all, achieving every goal,

as we talked about, is a series of

actions. And in order to do those

actions, we have to do some work. And

there are generally three inputs into

work. And that is time, energy, and

focus. Assuming you are the one doing

the work. If you have a team and you

have other team members doing the work,

then you have the other metric of money

because you're hiring the team and

getting them to do the work and stuff.

But for the most part, time, energy, and

focus are the three fundamental

resources that individuals invest in

doing work, taking actions to achieve

goals, which ultimately, fingers

crossed, leads us to success. Whatever

that definition of success is for us.

And on a very basic level, the most

important one of these is time. Time is

the primary thing because we only have

168 hours every week to do stuff. 168

hours. Most of us spend like 56 of those

sleeping and maybe another 12 of them

eating and going to the toilet and

stuff. So, what that basically leaves is

100 hours. Nice round number. If you

have a job and you have to, I don't

know, spend 60, you just, you know,

you've literally just got 40 hours left

every single week to do all of the

things that you want to do. If you

imagine that like most people have a

screen time of like 6 hours a day, all

of those 40 hours suddenly disappear.

And so, you realize very quickly, and

maybe if you're the sort of person who

watches this channel, and if you're at

this point in the video, that like

there's actually not that many hours in

every week to do all of the things that

you want to do. Which means that if we

want to be able to do the work that

helps us take the actions, that helps us

get to our goal, that helps us

eventually get to success, we want to be

good at managing our time. And ideally,

instead of having to again make this up

as we go along, ideally we have a system

that makes it a lot easier for us to

manage our time so that we can make time

for the important stuff and get rid of

the stuff that is less important. But

there are three key factors that I think

everyone should have. Number one, a good

time management system involves time

blocking, which is basically where you

stick blocks in your calendar for the

stuff that is important to you. For

example, I have a weekly date night with

my wife. That is time blocked. I go to

the gym three times a week. That is time

blocked. I have two filming days a week

where I work on YouTube videos. Those

are time blocked in the calendar. The

more you can intentionally decide how

you want to be using your time ahead of

time rather than having to make a

decision in the moment and then sort of

being at the mercy of your mood or your

energy levels, the easier it is to

reliably do the actions consistently

that are going to get you to your goals.

That's not to say that you should have

no room for spontaneity. You can totally

have free time in the calendar as well

where you can just do whatever you want.

But in general, the people that are most

likely to achieve goals are the ones who

actually make the time to achieve those

goals, perhaps unsurprisingly. Factor

number two that every good time

management system should have is a

method for prioritization. Now, you

probably have more things you would like

to do compared to the time that you

actually have to do them because you're

probably an ambitious person and you

have lots of goals and you want to live

a healthy balanced life. But as you've

probably realized, it's actually

impossible to do all the things. And so,

we need to prioritize what are the few

that are the most important. And

thirdly, ideally, every good time

management system should have some kind

of component of reflection where you

look at how you've been spending your

time, you reflect on it, and then you

use that reflection process to adjust

your time blocking and prioritization

system. For me, I try my best to do a

weekly review or reflection. And this is

just a series of questions that I ask

myself. It takes about 20 minutes and

it's a good way of making sure that I'm

continually realigning to the goals that

I want to achieve and making changes to

my schedule if like life happens.

System number three that I think would

benefit most people in their life is

some kind of health optimization or

health operating system. I call mine

health OS cuz it's just kind of cute.

And what this is is a system that you

can follow on autopilot that gets you to

your health goals. So this involves

things like sleep and diet and exercise.

Now, before you have some kind of system

around your health, you sleep roughly

whenever you feel tired and you wake up

whenever you want to wake up or or with

your alarm if you have some kind of like

work to go to. Your diet is like you're

sort of making it up as you go along.

Your exercise, you're sort of doing

random stuff whenever you can find the

time to do the thing. And this is why

most people are on average not

particularly healthy. But if you're

building a system into your life where

you're following a set of processes

around your sleep, your diet, your

exercise, then you're much more likely

to be in a better place. So, what might

be the system for optimizing your sleep?

Again, we have done videos about it.

I'll link them down below, but you know,

getting 8 hours a night is generally

very helpful. Having the room set to 19°

C is generally very helpful. That tends

to be the temperature for most people.

That optimizes sleep. Defining like when

you want bedtime to be, like, hey, I'm

going to sleep 10 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. or

whatever. Generally helpful. The more

you can stick to a consistent bed and

wake time, the more your circadian

rhythms actually line up and so the less

likely you are to be tired or groggy or

have low energy throughout the day. Of

course, there is the classic tip to view

morning sunlight as per Andrew Huberman,

which is again helpful for in training

our circadian rhythm. You've got things

like no phone in the bedroom, getting

rid of your phone so that you're not

like browsing Tik Tok or Reddit at like

2:00 in the morning, which is another

thing that would destroy your sleep. I

personally like having a Kindle on my

bedside table because then if I'm

struggling to go to sleep, I can just

read like a spirituality book or

something on Kindle and that gets me to

sleep pretty quickly. If you want, you

can use some kind of sleep tracker. I

wear a Whoop. I've got like a I've been

using this for the last like 380 days or

something. I've got a 380day streak on

it and so this gives me a sleep score.

And so generally with any kind of

system, having some sort of metric that

you can look at to see how effective is

your system performing and then being

able to sort of adjust your system based

on the metric is generally quite

helpful. It's not absolutely essential,

but for most things, having some way to

measure the number actually does

genuinely help. And all of these is just

a series of steps. And sure, most people

don't do all of these things absolutely

all the time. But having a system, which

is sort of a set of defaults that you're

going to follow most of the time, is

going to be way more likely for you to

have healthy sleep. And obviously, we

know that sleep is one of those things

that like contributes to every other

area of our life. When it comes to diet,

if for every single meal, you know,

three meals a day for like seven days a

week, if every single time you had to

figure out what you want to do in terms

of what you're eating or what you're

cooking or what you're buying from the

grocery store, a you end up wasting a

ton of time in like mental decision

fatigue and ordering random takeaways

and going to random restaurants and then

your calories and macros and all that

kind of stuff are off and then you end

up being pretty unhealthy. And so what

busy people and especially people with

kids tend to find is that actually

systemizing the household diet is

really, really, really helpful. Like

knowing that Tuesdays are like Chinese

takeout Tuesdays. Knowing that Thursday

is a movie night with the kids and

therefore we're going to order pizza.

Knowing that like we're going to meal

prep on the Sunday and then batch

prepare the breakfast for the whole week

and batch prepare the lunches for the

whole week so the kids can take them to

school or whatever the situation might

be. Almost everyone who you consider to

be successful probably has some kind of

system for their diet and their

nutrition. It doesn't have to be fancy.

It doesn't have to be private chef

levels, but just having a method that

you are following, which means you don't

have to think about what the hell am I

going to eat for these 21 meals every

single week will save you a huge amount

of time and also make you way healthier.

And then of course having some kind of

system that you're following for your

exercise. What I do personally is weight

training three times per week. I try to

do 40 minutes of zone 2 cardio through

like casual running about three times a

week. I aim to do yoga about one or two

times a week for general flexibility and

mobility. And of course, I aim to get

10,000 steps per day because there's a

good amount of evidence that like the

more steps you take, the healthier

you're going to be. And so, I have a

walking treadmill for my desk some of

the time as well. And again, this is a

system. The gym sessions are in the

calendar. The runs should be more

systemized for me cuz they're currently

not. I kind of make time for running

when I when I have the time, which is

why I'm a lot less consistent with this

than I am with the gym where it's

actually in the calendar. And so, if you

have some kind of system that you're

following, some set of default actions

that you're taking every week, your

health is far more likely to be good

compared to someone who does not have

that kind of system. And it's like that

phrase goes, the healthy man has 99

wishes, the unhealthy man has only one.

If you are sick or unhealthy, then that

is a massive drain on practically every

other area of your life as well. And so

you might as well follow some kind of

system. Again, if you're not sure, just

ask Chad DBT, watch some YouTube

tutorials for like, and it doesn't have

to be fancy, but it does take a lot of

the guesswork and a lot of the mental

decision fatigue out of the process of

keeping on top of your health. System

number four that I think everyone would

benefit from is some kind of system to

keep on top of the relationships that

matter to you the most. Now, this is

where it can sometimes sound weird being

like, "Why would you build a system for

relationships? Relationships shouldn't

be systemized." That's just not true.

Like, if you ask any like marriage

counselor or marriage therapist or read

any book about what makes a successful

marriage, actually, what a lot of it

comes down to is systems. Making sure

you have a weekly date night and that

it's in the calendar and that both

parties know that it happens every

Sunday evening, for example. That is an

example of a system doing something like

regular relationship reviews maybe once

a month where you and the spouse or you

and your partner sit down and actually

reflect on the state of your

relationship and if there's any like

minor grievances that you haven't had a

chance to bring up and you talk about

those things. Again, sounds weird but

it's incredibly helpful. Me and my wife

were seeing a relationship therapist

before we got married just cuz I got

some advice from a friend saying that

like relationship therapists are amazing

and he recommended we do relationship

reviews. We read a couple of books about

how to have a successful marriage that

also were bullish on relationship

reviews. This is a way of systemizing

your relationship so that you do the

sensible things without having to think

too hard about them. As you become super

busy at work, it's generally very

helpful to block out holidays in

advance. So, a lot of the most

successful entrepreneurs I know really

really take their personal life and

their relationships very seriously. And

so, at the start of the year before they

do any of their business planning, they

will block out in the calendar, okay,

this is holiday with the spouse, this is

holiday with the kids, this is we're

going to take all of August off for a

sbatical. Because if you don't block all

of that stuff out in advance, then the

work and life commitments will just sort

of fill the gaps. And so, you got to be

intentional about blocking this stuff

out in advance. This is building a

system around your relationships. The

most social people I know are not just

randomly going to social events,

especially once they become adults and

start having kids and start becoming

busy. They start doing standing order

social events. One of my friends, Nat,

who's very intentional about

relationships, he was like living in

Austin for a few years. And so, he and

his wife set up a weekly meetup at the

local lake. anyone was invited. So, they

just invited all their friends. They're

like, "Hey, we're going to be at this

lake 8:00 a.m. every Saturday morning,

and then we're going to go for breakfast

afterwards. If you can make it, come

join us." And they did this every single

week for 4 years. And this was an

amazing way for them to maintain

relationships and friendships with

people that they already knew. And also

was a fantastic way to get to know new

people because, you know, new people

would be, "Oh, you know, my friend

Johnny's in town. Like, let's bring him

along to this standing order social

event, this like 8 a.m. every Saturday

lake meetup." So there's things like

that that you can do that systemize the

stuff that you want to do in your social

life as well. This is the value of like

a monthly book club or a weekly lads

video game night or monthly movie night

with your friends and especially when

people get busy. Like if you're watching

this and you're young and you're like,

"Holy I can't believe like why do

you have to stick a calendar event for

hanging out with your friends?" If

you're watching this and you're above

the age of 25, you know that you're

busy, your friends are busy. Especially

if you're watching this and you have

kids or your friends have kids, man,

it's such a total freaking nightmare

trying to schedule people and get them

together, which is why having a system

around it can really, really help. And I

don't know if it's a thing in the rest

of the world, but in the UK there's like

a real tradition of like sending

physical Christmas cards to the people

that you know. And so we really suck at

this, but like I've got some friends who

are really good at sending an annual

Christmas card. And it's amazing how

such a small thing can actually sustain

a friendship for decades and decades

because you know you've got this annual

touch point where you just send a nice

handwritten Christmas card. Maybe

there's a photo of the family. Maybe

there's a bit of an update about what

you're up to. And there is a system

around this. The people that remember

birthdays, they probably don't have the

birthday in your head. They probably

have it in their calendar. And the

people I know who are the most

thoughtful about birthdays not only have

your birthday in the calendar, but

they'll have a recurring event every

year in their to-do list that like 2

weeks before the birthday reminds them

that, hey, Ali's birthday is coming up

on whatever. And so they'll start

thinking about the gift or the card and

stuff like 2 weeks in advance. All of

these are different examples of

systemizing your relationships so that

it takes the guesswork out of it. It

takes the mental decision fatigue out of

it and ultimately it nudges you towards

doing the actions that you know are

going to make it more likely that you

achieve your goal. In this case, it's to

maintain a good relationship with your

spouse and kids and friends and family

and stuff. The final system I want to

talk about in this video, and we could

talk about this for for absolutely ever

because I love this stuff. This would be

some kind of system around what do you

do by default when your paycheck comes

in, assuming you have a job or assuming

you have a business. And in general,

most personal finance advisers and gurus

and stuff who like think about this

stuff a lot and advise people about it

talk about building a system to put your

finances on autopilot as much as

possible. So the people that end up not

saving or investing any money are the

ones who get the paycheck and then they

do whatever they want with it and then

they're like, "Hey, yeah, at some point

if there's any left over then I'll

invest it or then I'll save it." That

often never works because there is often

very little left over. Let's say this is

your monthly paycheck. As soon as the

paycheck comes in, automatically some

percentage of it is set aside for

savings and it goes into a a savings

account. For example, automatically some

percentage of it is set aside for

investments and it automatically goes

into the investment account via Robin

Hood or the Roth IRA or whatever the

system is depending on your country.

Some percentage of it is automatically

set aside for tax if you are in a

country or in a situation where you have

to pay your own taxes.

Some is automatically set aside for

bills. and then you know that you can

kind of do whatever you want with the

rest because at least the basics that

are going to keep you out of prison and

that are going to grow your financial

nest egg have been taken care of. This

is an example of a personal finance

system. It is a series of actions or

steps that you do every time you get

your paycheck that reduces the need for

guesswork. And if you can automate as

much of this as possible, it means that

you don't even have to make the decision

every single time cuz it automatically

goes into the savings account and the

investment account and the bills account

and the tax account and then you know

what's left over. Whereas if this is not

automated, then every single month you

have to actively make the decisions. And

the problem with actively make making

decisions is that we generally make

decisions emotionally rather than

logically. Even though we like to think

of ourselves as logical creatures,

actually mo like 99% of our decisions

are made purely based on emotion. And

because our emotions are like fluctuant,

if we're feeling great and the paycheck

hits, then fantastic. We might, you

know, be living in line with our our

future self and like putting stuff into

savings and investments. But if we're

not feeling great and the paycheck comes

in, we might be doing a lot less

sensible things when it comes to our

money. And so what a system does is that

it removes the need for you to make that

decision every single time. You make the

decision ahead of time. You set it and

forget it. And that tends to be how the

people that succeed at saving and

investing through the mechanism of

something like a regular paycheck. They

tend to have some kind of system around

it. Now, hopefully this video has

convinced you that it's very helpful to

have systems around your personal and

professional life to help you achieve

your goals. And if you're interested in

learning more about the specific system

that I've developed around goal setting,

then there will be a video right over

here which is about the GPS method. Now

GPS stands for goal plan and system. So

it's another video that's about systems,

but it will go into much more detail

about specifically how to set goals, how

to create plans, and then how to build

systems to make sure you actually stick

to the plan. So that'll be right over

there. And thank you so much for

watching, and I will see you over there.

Bye-bye.