Don't go to the gym or workout or eat good just because you want to lose weight. Do it as a habit. Be motivated by the good feeling you get post workout everyday, not because you want to lose 10lbs or bench 200... Don't weight yourself, don't set a "goal". Just go. five times a week. Just keep going. Find a running club, and run because it's a good way to hang out with friends twice a week. Play a sport. Eat vegetables. But don't force them down, experiment with ways to integrate them into tasty meals. Then keep playing with recipes, and suddenly you're eating super healthy just because it's fun to try cooking some crazy plant from the store and you're making all these cool dishes.

I will consider these while I try to work out what the difference is between what Scott Adams calls a goal vs a system. I can be very pedantic, and I think that is getting in the way of understanding.

I googled "systems vs goals" and actually found another Scott Adams post on the topic, even about excercise :)

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/systems/

I'm trying to get a more direct handle on the difference so I can better apply it generally.

It seems that when Adams says "goal" he is specifically talking about an endpoint. A destination. And that's a common definition I think.

His use of system seems to still have goals, they are just smaller and easily achieved. They also seem to be more related to triggers or starting points. For example, "go to the gym" not "workout" or "do X reps."

He also provides a relief valve in this case (not having to work out once he gets there if he doesn't feel up to it), so that the pressure of the expected follow through to "going to the gym" is relieved and thus not a deterrent.

So if I were to apply this to walking, it could be something like "put on walking shoes, exercise clothes, and go outside, everyday."

Or for better food: "Go to the store, buy some veggies I like," and maybe add on "go through prep work for cooking them." The relief valve could be that "I don't have to cook and eat this for dinner, but i do have to buy and prep."

The problem comes at the "meta" level, bargaining with ourselves whether we feel like going to the gym, so we hem and haw over putting the shorts and shoes on. Allowing this self-bargaining process to become involved is adding mostly negative emotional energy in a way that does not pay a useful dividend.

Presumably the relief valve has value in cutting short certain kinds of excuses. "Fine. If I am outside with my shoes and gear on, I do not have to go to the gym. Just getting the shoes on is easy enough, right? Once I am outside, maybe I will want to stroll around the block. But I can decide that once I am outside and ready -- no sense in dawdling now."

You need to be incredibly self conscious of approximately how many calories you're ingesting throughout the day (no, you don't have to weigh your food. Just a rough estimate). And you have to maintain this system forever, basically.

How you actually implement the system, such as specifics of what foods to eat, what form of exercise, etc., can wildly vary, but you need to always remember the fundamentals.

Just go out and walk, don't think "I have to walk because I need to lose weight", do it as an habit.

You don't think "I need to wash my teeth because I don't want them to rot", or shower every day because "I don't want to smell".

We probably could avoid washing and brushing our teeth for a day, without ill effects. But we do it every day because it's so ingrained in our daily routine that our day does not feel complete if we skip it.

It's much harder to break a rule than to break an exception, and routine is much more powerful than willpower.

Wait, how long has this been going on? Do most people really take showers every day? Most people I know (myself included) only do it when they get smelly/sweaty, which is roughly every day in the summer, every 1.5-2 days in the winter. Is this a US thing?

I guess this is one of those cultural things, and people just do it half because it's good sense and half because it's the custom.

South African here. I shower daily, no matter the season (as does everyone I know). Sometimes another quick shower just before bed on a hot day.

I just don't feel clean otherwise. Climate accounts for the seasons, but we do it in cold-ish Winters as well.

I think there's a distinction between hygiene and social/cultural 'etiquette'. I will always make sure I am very clean before meeting someone, casual or otherwise.

Yes, it's pretty broad, and it's a neverending learning process. But become a systems thinker and you'll be able to see how the world works scientifically, instead of based on false personal opinions or narrow perspectives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

The concepts are aimed at manufacturing, but they're more generally about management and how to create quality as a culture, not simply as a product. It's brilliant, but it clashes against most American business thinking in the last few generations (all about punishment, motivation, raises; basically about tuning the individual), so it largely goes ignored. It's also why you should listen to it, given that most American businesses in the last few generations basically suck.

Ignore his hokey names and lack of bedside manner. Pay special attention to his 14 points, and 7 deadly diseases. Think about everything in terms of statistics and process. Apply everything to your own business experiences, and you'll start to see how he's entirely right, and all your assumptions and everything you thought was true about business, manufacturing, quality, and especially people (your workers, your employees) are basically false. Turn it upside-down and start fresh with real science.

Find a thing you like doing that happens to involve a lot of body motion. Ideally, find multiple things, so that if one stops for whatever reason you're still doing the others. But it can be hard to find that kind of time and energy.

Walk/cycle whenever possible. (You may need to move if you live in the car-oriented suburbs.)

Start thinking of the entire world as a gym. See a low-hanging branch of a tree? Try doing some pull-ups.

Hard is deciding every day whether you feel like going for a walk by arguing with yourself over whether you will feel better afterwards. That is effort spent with no satisfying payoff.

But the more you learn about the system (which only really works when you do it every day)the better you get at solving your problems whereas people who rely solely on out-of-the box software improve rather little.

You already have a system - you need to change it. Take a look at your eating habits.

Systems are habits

For weight loss, that's the key. Exercise will help, but the input calories is a much bigger factor.

If you are like most people I suspect you will find you snack a lot, and possibly drink softdrinks.

Monitor your calories (see the MyFitnessPal app/website) for 2 days, and I bet you'll find if you change your eating system to avoid those snacks and softdrinks you will lose weight.

The way I would describe this is that my "goal" in life to improve my everyday habits, the way I work, the way I manage priorities, how I structure my lifestyle, the broad direction in which I am taking my career, the kind of people I am meeting and attracting in my life (which is a result of my overall lifestyle, priorities etc.) etc.

You constantly tweak these things to take your life in a broad direction that you want to take it towards.

As a few concrete examples, if you are not meeting enough women in your life, or the type you want, the answer is not to go out to a bar. The answer if to change your lifestyle in a fundamental way which makes meeting women of the type you want a natural outcome.

If you are not happy with your health, fitness etc. the answer is not necessarily (in this approach) to join a gym or hire a trainer for 3 months. It is to understand what makes a healthy lifestyle, slowly change your dietary habits, figure out an exercise scheme that makes sense for you, figure out how in your current lifestyle you can get plenty of sleep etc. Basically something that would make being healthy and fit a natural outcome.

A necessary condition for this to work is that because it is such a systemic approach, the system has to be congruent with your overall lifestyle, and you have to be happy with executing the system. This is a big reason, why I feel, most dietary plans, or hobbies don't pan out enough. It is very short term goal drives and not something which is seamlessly integrated in a systemic way in your life.

These are two examples where I have applied it (with a reasonable degree of success). I am using something similar for my overall work life, but whether it has succeeded or not is something I guess I will only know in another 10 years or so :)

I hope that answers your question.