Stop Setting 'Smart' Goals: Why Your Ambition Needs a Systems Overhaul
By Derek — Money isn't complicated. People just make it complicated. ·
The Problem with Your Vision Board
It’s October 2026. If you’re like most of the founders and high-earners I talk to, you’re looking at that list of goals you wrote back in January and feeling a familiar, low-level hum of anxiety. Maybe you hit 60% of them. Maybe you forgot where you even saved the document.
We love to talk about goal setting like it’s a spiritual practice. We pick a number, we pick a date, and we pray to the universe that the market, our clients, and our energy levels align to make it happen. But here’s the truth: Money isn't complicated. People just make it complicated by confusing a wish list with a strategy.
After five years at Goldman, I saw people with nine-figure net worths treat their goals with the same chaotic energy as a college kid trying to pass an elective. They’d say, “I want to double revenue,” but they didn't have a system to handle the scale. They were chasing a destination without checking if their car had gas. If you’re setting goals without building the infrastructure to support them, you aren’t planning; you’re just hoping for a miracle.
Stop Chasing 'What' and Start Obsessing Over 'How'
Most people get goal setting backward. They focus entirely on the destination: “I want a $5M exit,” or “I want to hit $20k in monthly recurring revenue.”
That’s fine for a LinkedIn post, but it’s useless for a Tuesday afternoon. When you focus on the outcome, you’re constantly looking at the gap between where you are and where you want to be. That gap is where burnout lives. It’s where you start feeling like you aren’t doing enough.
I’m a massive F1 guy. When I’m watching the cars tear around the track at 200 mph, they aren’t looking at the finish line in their peripheral vision. They’re looking at the apex of the next corner. They are focused on the braking point, the gear shift, and the line. If a driver only stared at the checkered flag, they’d be in the wall by turn three. Your goals should work the same way. Stop staring at the $5M and start staring at the system that generates the $5M.
The Three-Layer Framework
If you want to actually move the needle, I want you to stop setting 'SMART' goals—or at least, stop letting them be the end of the conversation. Instead, divide your ambition into three distinct layers.
1. The Anchor (The North Star)
This is your big-picture objective. Keep it simple. One sentence. One number. If you can’t explain it to me in ten seconds while we’re waiting for our coffee, it’s too complex. This isn't for daily motivation; this is for gut-checking your decisions. When a potential partnership comes up, you ask: "Does this move me closer to the Anchor?" If no, it’s a hard pass.
2. The Engine (The Process)
This is where most people fail. What is the repeatable, boring, daily habit that makes the Anchor inevitable? If your goal is to grow your business, your engine isn’t "get more clients." Your engine is "spend 90 minutes every morning on high-leverage outreach." If you don't have a recurring system that forces progress, you don't have a goal; you have a fantasy.
3. The Governor (The Feedback Loop)
In engineering, a governor controls the speed of a machine to prevent it from spinning out of control. In your life, this is your weekly review. Every Friday afternoon, I look at my numbers. Not just the bank account—I look at the inputs. Did I do the outreach? Did I ship the work? If the inputs are there but the results aren't, I adjust the engine. If the inputs aren't there, I stop lying to myself about why I haven't hit my goal.
You Are Not Your Goals
Here’s a hard truth: Your net worth, your quarterly revenue, and your title do not define your value. I’ve coached people who hit every single goal they set and were still miserable because they didn’t know how to exist without the pressure of the next milestone.
When you tie your self-worth to a spreadsheet, you become fragile. You start taking stupid risks because you’re terrified of missing a target. That’s how you blow up a business. Real, sustainable wealth comes from building a machine that works whether you’re having a good day or a bad one. It’s about building a life where the goals are just the byproduct of a well-oiled machine.
Let’s Get Practical
If you’re sitting there thinking this sounds great but feeling like you’re still spinning your wheels, stop. Close the laptop. Take fifteen minutes.
1. Pick one Anchor for Q4. 2. Define the one repeatable Engine (habit) that makes it happen. 3. Put a recurring 15-minute appointment on your calendar every Friday to check your inputs.
If you can do that, you’re already miles ahead of 99% of the people who are busy "manifesting" their success instead of building it.
Money shouldn't be a source of stress. It’s just fuel. Let’s make sure you have an engine that knows how to burn it properly.
Hit me up in the comments or shoot me a DM if you’re trying to build out your system—I’d love to hear what your Anchor is for the rest of the year. Let’s get to work.