112 | Throw Your Goals Away: Build the Operating System That Wins the Year

Patrick: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Vital Wealth Strategies Podcast. I’m your host, Patrick Lonergan. This episode is for the person who is serious about results. With this episode coming out the week of the new year, I thought it would be good to give you a system for success. If you’re tired of setting goals that look good on paper, but never seem to survive the year, this conversation is for you.
Today, we’re not talking about motivation, we’re not talking about vision boards. We’re not talking about doing more. We are talking about building a system. Specifically, we’re going to walk through how to design an operating system for the year one that governs your decisions, your time, your execution, one primary objective for your business, one primary objective for your life, and instead of simple, repeatable inputs that make progress predictable, I want you to listen to this episode actively.
If you’re driving or walking, fine, just listen. If you can sit down later with a notebook, [00:01:00] that’s even better, and you can go to vital strategies.com/planning to download the free resources. We’ve got to support this episode. By the end of this episode, you will know exactly what to do next and how to do it.
Let’s get into it. Most people do not fail at planning because they lack discipline. They fail because they’re planning the wrong way. You do not have a motivation problem. You do not need better goals, and you definitely do not need another inspirational quote taped to your wall. What you have is a systems problem.
Every January, capable, intelligent people sit down and they do the same thing. They write a list of goals, health goals, business goals, family goals, spiritual goals, 10, 15, sometimes 20 things are going to crush This year and almost every year the same things happen. Execution starts to fade, focus gets lost.
Life pulls us away from the list we made. This year and almost every year, the same thing happens. Execution starts to fade, focus gets [00:02:00] lost. Life pulls us away from the list we made. The year fills up, and often by the end of Q1, those goals are either quietly abandoned or REBA branded. As lessons learned, that is not a character flaw.
It is a predictable human behavior. Scripture actually names this problem. In James one eight, it says, A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. When your attention is divided, your outcomes are unstable. Not because you’re lazy, but because you’re scattered. There is overwhelming research that shows the more objectives you pursue at the same time, the worse you perform on all of them.
Attention is finite. Decision making is mentally expensive. Motivation fades, especially when the goals start to feel like work. But systems that are put into practice produce results. Strength comes from structure, not from sheer force. Goals tell you where you want to go. Systems determine whether you actually get there.
[00:03:00] Here’s the uncomfortable truth. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems and if you do not design the system and break out of the way or you’re currently doing things, inertia will keep you moving in the same direction and keep getting the same results in Proverbs 26 11.
Illustrates this in a graphic way, like a dog that returns to his vomit, is a fool who repeats his folly. Unexamined patterns repeat themselves no matter how sincere your intentions are. Here’s an example we have all seen in nature. A slow, steady trickle of water will carve solid rock over time, not because it’s intense, but because it’s faithful.
Take the same amount of water and dump it all at once on the rock and nothing changes. So scripture affirms this exact principle in Luke 1610. It says, one who is faithful and very little is also faithful and much this truth shows us that when we show up regularly in the little things, we also show up regularly in the big things.
There’s interesting [00:04:00] research out there about people that make their beds every day. Making your bed doesn’t have anything to do with being successful. What it does have something to do with is being faithful in the little things. You show up the same way for the big things. You know how to stick to something.
Now. Most people plan their year like a flood. Massive effort. Big intentions, no structure, no repeatability. What actually changes lives in businesses is the drip simple things done over and over again in the right order for a long enough period of time. In Galatians six, nine, it puts language to this, let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season.
We will reap if we do not give up. This episode is not about goal setting. In fact, I’m going to ask you to throw most of your goals away. We’re going to do something far more effective. You’re going to design an operating system for the year one system that governs how you make decisions, where your time goes, and what actually gets done.
One primary objective for your business, one primary [00:05:00] objective for your life, and a simple set of repeatable inputs that make progress nearly inevitable. If you’re willing to stop chasing everything and start building what actually works, this episode will change how you plan forever. Let’s get to work.
If you want a year that looks different, you cannot start by doing more. You have to start by deciding what actually matters. Most people do not lack ambition. They lack constraint. They sit down to plan the year and ask the wrong question. They ask, what do I want to accomplish? If that question guarantees overload, the better question is this, what is the one thing that must be true by the end of the year for everything else to be easier?
Not one, not five, not a category, not a theme. One primary objective. Here’s what happens when you do not choose one. Every decision feels equally important. Every request sounds reasonable. Every opportunity becomes a distraction wearing a disguise, and then you wonder why the [00:06:00] year feels reactive.
Scripture does not mince words about this. James one eight says, A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. That is not a personality flaw, that is a systems issue. Divided focus produces unstable outcomes. Jesus says it even more directly in Luke 9 62. No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.
You cannot move forward while constantly negotiating your direction, and the apostle Paul gives us. The performance model in one Corinthians 9 24. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one receive the receives the prize. So run that, you may obtain it. Notice what scripture assumes.
Singular direction, clear aim, no casual wandering. So here’s the shift I want you to make. You are not planning a year of goals. You’re choosing one outcome that governs the year. One for your business, one for your life. [00:07:00] Everything else becomes a supporting behavior, not a competing ambition. If you feel resistance to the idea, pay attention to it.
That resistance is usually not wisdom, it’s fear. Fear of choosing wrong, fear of missing out, fear of committing and being exposed again. Proverbs 4 25 through 27 encourages, encourages us in this point. Let your eyes look directly forward. Your gaze. Be straight before you ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure do not swerve to the right or to the left.
Clarity produces stability. Constraint produces progress. Think of sunlight. On a cold day, it can warm your face, but that same sunlight under a magnifying glass, it can start a fire. We have a client that’s selling a minority share of his business. He was right at the nine figure valuation. He was talking about the journey and the struggle to get there.
He said, I decided to focus. I sold all my rental properties. I shut down the businesses that were good, but distracting me from the main [00:08:00] opportunity. Once I focused all of my efforts, the business really took off. In the next section, I’m going to give you a decision filter. Four tests that every potential primary objective must pass.
If it fails even one, you discard it, not later, not after debate, you just discard it. Second guessing is how people stay busy and unfruitful. Let’s walk through the filter. If you’re going to build a system that actually works, we have to start with the right question. Not what do I want to do this year, but what must be true by the end of this year for everything else to be easier?
This is where most people get stuck. They sit with five and 10 important objectives and try to negotiate between them that negotiation is exactly why nothing moves. So I’m going to give you a decision filter. For test. Every potential primary objective must pass all four. If it fails even one, you discard it, no exceptions.
This is not about being harsh, it’s about being honest. Test number one, the leverage [00:09:00] test. Ask yourself this question. If this one thing is accomplished, does it make multiple other problems easier or irrelevant? If it only improves one narrow area, it is not the primary objective. This is true in our faith as well.
We see in Matthew 6 33, he says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. All these things will be added to you. Notice the order. One thing first, many things follow. Leverage follows because of order matters. When you put the right things in the right place downstream outcomes improve naturally.
If an objective does not create leverage, it does not get the right to govern your year. Test number two, the constraint test. Here’s the next question. Is this addressing the real bottleneck or just something I prefer to work on? Most people choose objectives they enjoy, not constraints they need to confront, but systems are built by removing friction, not avoiding it.
Constraint work requires discipline and focus. You cannot fix what you [00:10:00] refuse to face if the objective does not address the thing slowing everything else down. It is not the primary objective. Here’s the truth. Entrepreneurs need to hear you might be the constraint. Trust your people and let them go.
They may make some mistakes, but they will often. Surprise you with the outcomes they get. Think of Elon Musk. He’s running four or five very, very successful businesses, some of them publicly traded. He can’t do that all on his own. He has to delegate and leverage people to, to help get that done. He has to get out of the way.
Test number three, the system test. This is where most objectives fail. Ask this can progress toward this objective. Be driven by simple. Repeatable inputs rather than heroic effort. If it requires constant intensity, willpower, or emotional momentum, it will not survive the year. If the objective cannot be broken down into small, repeatable actions, it is not system ready.
Test [00:11:00] number four, the clarity test. The final question, if someone else looked at this objective at the end of the year, would they clearly know if I or my team accomplished it or not? Winning is subjective, emotional, or open to interpretation. You have not defined it well enough. Scripture values clarity and order.
In Habakkuk two, two, it says, write the vision, make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it, and Paul reinforces his principle in one Corinthians 1440. But all things should be done decently and in order. Clarity creates momentum and accountability. So here is the rule. If a primary objective fails even one of these tests, you remove it.
You’re not choosing what sounds impressive. You’re choosing what will actually produce fruit. And once you have selected the primary objective, everything else becomes simpler because now you’re no longer reacting to the ear, you’re dictating the direction of it. Next, I’m going to show [00:12:00] you the operating system that makes this objective inevitable.
Now you have identified the primary objective. The mistake most people make is they stop thinking. They assume clarity alone will carry them through the year. It will not. Clarity without structure still collapses under pressure. What makes the primary objective inevitable is the operating system that supports it.
This is where execution lives. An operating system is simply the way outcomes are produced. Whether you design one intentionally or not, you already have one. The question is whether it’s working for you or against you. The system I want you to build has four parts. These four parts apply equally to your business and your personal life.
Same rigor, same discipline, same logic. They are definition, inputs, cadence, and feedback. Again, those four parts are definition, inputs, cadence, and feedback. We’re going to take these one at a time. So the first part, definition, definition, answers a very [00:13:00] specific question. What does winning actually look like?
Not what you hope for, not what you intended, not what you will explain away later. What is objectively true if you win. Most people skip this step or soften it with vague language. This is how you end up with effort instead of outcomes. I’m guilty of this and I’ve seen the consequences of running my business without clearly defining the outcome, and it has been painful.
The most painful was a poorly constructed bonus structure that had vague outcomes where I ended up paying a performance bonus to someone and then turning around and firing them in short order because of poor performance. That was a very frustrating period. If it is not plain, it cannot govern your action.
So definition draws the finish line. Nothing more. For example, we want to improve our margins is not a definition. Saying gross margin increases from 24% to 30% by December 31st is that’s a great [00:14:00] definition. So again, a bad example is we want to improve our margins. A good definition is gross margin increases from 24% to 30% by December 31st.
One is motivational, the other is executable. And this applies to life just as much to business. If your definition of winning cannot be measured or clearly observed. You have not defined it. You have described a desire. Paul reinforces this in one Corinthians 9 26. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one.
Beating the air, undefined wind create aimless effort. Once definition is clear, you can move to the second part. That leads us to part two. The inputs. Inputs. Answer this question, what must be done consistently for this outcome to occur? Inputs are behaviors, not results. They’re what you control. This is where people either build a system or revert back to willpower.
Here is the problem. [00:15:00] Willpower and inspiration are variable. We can be excited to take action or we can have a wave of inspiration that comes over us. If we wait for these things to show up, it’s a problematic because they will ebb and flow based on a number of factors. Stephen King, one of the most prolific and successful offers of authors of the last century.
Does not rely on inspiration. He relies on inputs. In his book on writing, king explains that he writes 2000 words every single day, whether he feels motivated or not, whether he’s inspired or not, not when conditions are perfect, but every day at that pace, he produces a first draft of a novel in roughly three months.
That is not talent doing the heavy lifting. That is a system. He did not sit down and say, I want to write a great book someday. He defined the outcome, then committed to a daily input. Made the outcome inevitable. 2000 words a day. Simple, repeatable, boring, but effective. That is how outcomes are produced.
If your plan depends on motivation, intensity, [00:16:00] or perfect weeks, it’s not a system. It’s a gamble that you’ll get the results. Scripture regularly talks about sowing and reaping. Reaping is the outcome. Sowing is the input. You do not control the harvest directly. You control what you plant and how consistently you plant it.
Inputs should be simple, repeatable, and few in number. Usually three to five is enough. If you need more than that, you’re over-engineering or avoiding the real work. Small inputs, faithfully executed compound. Once inputs are clear, they must be anchored in time. That brings us to the third part. Part three, cadence.
Cadence answers this question, when and how often will these inputs happen if it is not scheduled? It is not real. Most people confuse intention with commitment. Cadence is commitment expressed in time. This might be the hardest step in the process of developing your operating system. Inertia is going to get in your way.
It is easy to keep doing what you’ve always been doing. Starting is the hard part. [00:17:00] I remember when I first started this podcast, scheduling the episode, making sure everything was set up properly, getting it edited and published, all felt like a massive effort. Then the second episode was a little easier, and that continued for every episode moving forward.
Was because inertia was working against us at first, and then eventually for us, we had to get the boulder moving, and once it was moving, it was easy to keep it going. Scripture assumes that life is meant to be lived in rhythms. Inputs without cadence will fade away. Cadence creates reliability. This is where weekly rhythms, daily habits, and quarterly reviews belong.
Not as aspirations, but as decisions. If you leave cadence, open-ended urgency will always win. Urgency rarely serves what matters most, which leads us to the final and often ignored part of the system. Part four, feedback, feedback, answers this question, how will I know if the system is working without feedback?
You’re guessing feedback is not [00:18:00] self-criticism, it is self-leadership. Scripture calls us to this discipline explicitly. In two Corinthians 13, five. It says, examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourself. Examination is how alignment is maintained. Feedback can be metrics, weekly reviews, scorecards, and honest conversations based on that data.
What matters is that it’s regular and objective. If you do not inspect the system and make sure it’s on track, you may end up at the wrong destination. Think about a cross country flight. The jet can be operating perfectly, but if the pilot isn’t adjusting the course based on new information, they man may land in Boca Raton versus New York.
Here is the key Insight definition tells you what winning is. Inputs tell you what to do. Cadence tells you when to do it, and feedback tells you whether it’s working. That is the operating system. When this system is built around a single primary objective, progress becomes predictable. In [00:19:00] the final section, I’m going to walk you through how to use a half day CEO working session to build this system for your year.
Now, let’s bring this home. Everything we have talked about today only works if you do something with it. Insight without execution does nothing. Clarity without commitment changes, nothing. So here’s what I want you to do next. Block a half day right now. Pause this audio and pick a day. I’ll give you a second.
Okay, now, I wasn’t kidding. Block it off right now. If you didn’t do it, not someday, put it on the calendar now. This is not a thinking retreat. This is a CEO working session, and it might be the most valuable time you spend all year for shaping the direction of your business. You’re going to use that time to build the operating system for your year one primary objective for your business, one primary objective for your life, and the systems that make both inevitable.
To make this simple, we’ve created free resources that walk [00:20:00] you through this entire process step by step. You can download the planning workbook in supporting materials@vitalstrategies.com slash planning. That link is also in the show notes. Print it. Print a few copies so you can write all over them, use it, make decisions.
Here’s how to run the half day. My encouragement is to do it first thing in the morning. I would consider getting a workout in moving your body in some way first. Then I grab my cup of coffee, do some Bible study and journal my prayers. It sets me in the right tone. Then I move on to your planning session.
You’ll be ready physically, mentally, and spiritually. Start by selecting the primary objective for your business. Using the decision filter we talked through. Do not negotiate. Choose the objective that actually governs the year. Then do the same for your personal life. Same rigor, same honesty. Once the objectives are set, define what winning actually looks like.
Draw the finish line clearly. Then identify the inputs, the small, repeatable actions that have done consistently. [00:21:00] Make the outcome unavoidable. Then make sure you get those on the calendar when you set the cadence. When you set the cadence, decide when those inputs will happen. If it is not scheduled, it is not real.
This might be the most important part of the entire process. Finally, decide how you will review the system. Weekly, monthly, quarterly feedback is how leaders stay aligned with their objectives. Scripture calls this kind of intentionality, wisdom. Prepare your work outside. Get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that, build your house.
Now the order precedes the outcome. If we do that in this, what the scripture says in the wrong order, I’ll have to plant my crops at the wrong time of year. If I build my house first and then plant my microbes, there may not be a harvest and the consequences could be dire. The same can be true in your business, building a great workflow.
At the expense of generating revenue may cause your business to starve to death because there is no cash. This is [00:22:00] not about a strong start. It is about a faithful finish. The year ahead will obey the system you build. If you do not choose the system, the year will choose one for you and it will not be kind.
So take the time, build the operating system, commit to the inputs, review it honestly, and let the slow faithful drip do its work. Go to vital strategies.com/planning. Download the resources, block the time and get to work. That is how lasting change is built. As we wrap up, I want to leave you with this.
You do not drift into a great year. You design one, you do not stumble into clarity. You choose it and you do not accidentally produce meaningful results. You build the system that makes them inevitable. The difference between people who look back at the end of the year with peace and those who feel regret is rarely effort.
It is structure. One primary objective, clear definition, simple inputs, consistent cadence, and honest feedback. That is how progress [00:23:00] compounds. If you’ve not done it yet, go to vinyl strategies.com/planning and download the free resources we’ve created to support this process. Block the half day, treat it like the most important meeting this quarter because that’s exactly what it is, and then do the simple things faithfully over time.
Proverbs 1311 says, wealth gained, hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. Our culture tells the lie that you can have the drive through. Breakthrough Real success is doing the unremarkable things consistently for a remarkable amount of time. That principle applies far beyond money.
It applies to your health, your relationships, your leadership, and your life. Thank you for spending this time with me today. If this episode was helpful, share it with someone who needs clarity and focus this year. That’s how we keep expanding this community of entrepreneurs who are building smarter, more intentional wealth.
If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment, leave a review. It helps more entrepreneurs discover the tools and insights that can truly change [00:24:00] the trajectory of their business and their life. And remember, you’re a vital entrepreneur. You’re vital because you’re the backbone of our economy, creating opportunities, driving growth, and making an impact.
You’re vital to your family, creating abundance in every aspect of life, and you’re vital to me because you’re committed to growing your wealth, leading with purpose, and creating something truly great. Thank you for being a part of this incredible community of vital entrepreneurs. I appreciate you. Look forward to having you back here next time on the Vital Wealth Strategies Podcast.
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