How to Stop Starting Over: Goals vs Systems After 40

Nikkiey: Many women believe, once I hit this goal, I'm going to be happy. And this is where goals can actually completely restrict your happiness. And this was me early on in my journey as well. I remember that I was like, okay, I'm going to do bodybuilding. And once I get to this goal, I'm going to feel comfortable and confident. I'm going to be on fire. My body happened for a day, and I gained 25 pounds back in one month. What happens here is you live in a delay. I'll be proud later. I'll be confident later. I'll feel good later. What's going on, everyone?

Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show with your host, Nikkiey Stott. On these episodes, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. Today's episode is episode number 343. And I want to take you guys down a thought track in terms of changing the narrative of focusing on an end goal, and more importantly, switching gears and trying to focus on the systems that are going to get you to that end goal.

This is one of my favorite topics to talk about. I believe this is also one of the first episodes released on this podcast platform. It's inspired by the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's so good. And I hope by the end of this episode, you guys feel more empowered in the way that you're going to tackle your fitness journey and transformation. Because how you approach this topic can not only change how you look at your body and look at the results, but also your entire life.

He talks about in the book how goals are about the results that you want, and systems are about the processes that are going to get you there. And if you think about it, in the fitness industry, most women, we're so obsessed with getting to the end result. We want to lose the weight. We're always asked, how long is it going to take me to get there? I have a wedding, or summer's coming up, will I be able to be 10 pounds lighter by then? Right? So we're all obsessed with that end result. But very few people sit down and actually build out what that process needs to look like in order to get to that end result.

So let's start with something. I'm going to lean in on this episode with you guys, and I lean in with giving you guys tough love. Think about it like this. He says this in the book: winners and losers have the same goals. The woman who gets in shape and the woman who quits in four weeks wanted the same thing starting out. The woman who transforms her body and the woman who just restarts every single January have the same goal. They want to accomplish the same goal. They want to either lose weight, they want to build muscle, they want to feel confident, they want to improve their hormones, they want to fix their metabolism, they want to fit their clothes, they want to look good in a bikini, whatever.

Everybody wants that, right? So if the goal is the same, why do some get there and others don't? It's not desire. It's not access to information. It's not motivation. It is the system. The women who win commit to the system, even when it's boring, even when the scale doesn't move, even when life is chaotic, even when they don't feel like it.

The women who struggle only commit emotionally. They go all in when they feel inspired. They start this new program, and they're so motivated. They're like, I cannot wait. I'm going hard. I'm in my week two, and I'm still going. But out of the gate, they commit emotionally. And when they don't feel inspired, when they don't feel motivated, when life gets hard at week five or week six, the system collapses.

Okay, so let's make it a little bit more practical. I want you guys to think about it like this. The system looks like hitting your protein daily. That's the system. Getting your protein macro hit daily. The system is scheduling your lifts and getting them done. The system is grocery shopping intentionally. It's planning and packing your meals. It's drinking your water. It's setting an alarm at night at 8:30 to start getting ready for bed so you're in bed by nine and you're getting enough sleep. This is the system. It's getting enough steps. It's following through Monday through Sunday, not just Monday through Friday.

That's a system. A goal is, I want to lose 20 pounds. But a goal without the system is just wishful thinking, guys. Maybe think about it like this. The uncomfortable translation most people avoid is that when you say I don't have time, what you're often saying is, I don't have the priority. I'm not making this a priority. And I've said this before: the person who goes after it and commits to the system, and the person who goes after it and commits emotionally, the ones that have the same goal, we all have the same 24 hours. The difference is the structure.

Winners structure their life around what matters, in alignment with the goal they're getting to. Others structure around what's convenient. Can I get my workout in? Am I able to get my workout in? Oh, it's only convenient on these days that I meal prep, and maybe I'll just meal prep for half of the week. You can even hear the difference in my tone when I say those things, right?

So the goal isn't the separating factor here. It's the system. The wildest thing about this is you can't control the goal, but you can control the systems. The systems are controllable. The goal is very distant. The systems are something that you do on a daily basis that are going to help you to get to that goal. Okay?

So again, a reminder. I think he breaks it down into four, and that's probably what I'm going to end up doing in this episode. The first one is winners and losers have the same goals. But the women who commit to the actual system of things, which is following the plan, doing the protein daily, focusing on their macros, assessing their nutrition, scheduling their lifts, grocery shopping, meal planning, drinking water, the basics, right? The ones that commit to that are the ones that win. But the ones who commit emotionally, which is probably, if I had to guess, 80% of the population, 85% of the population, or maybe, if I want to stress it a little bit more and lean in harder and give you guys some tough love, they say that it's 99% of the population, and the ones that can make it happen are 1%.

So take it how you want to. But if you feel me leaning into this and it's like, yes, it's me, then hey, it's controllable. We can control these things. You can control the systems. Okay? So systems are important.

The second thing he talks about in the book, part two, is achieving a goal. Achieving a goal is a moment. It's not a transformation. So let me unpack that a little bit more. Achieving a goal is a moment. Changing your system is a lifestyle. What most women do is they're unhappy with their body. They find something online. There's this program. They get fired up. They jump into the program. It's probably a quick fix. I'm just going to use that because it's what the majority of women dive into, because they want to get 20 pounds less in three months. They want to get summer ready. Whatever.

They get fired up. The plan tells them to restrict. It's all or nothing. They drop the weight. They hit the goal. And then what? We've all been there. I know I'm talking to the woman that has gained, lost, gained, lost multiple times, right? When you dive into a program and you focus on just getting to the goal, the goal is just the moment. And what typically happens when it's over and you hit the goal is a lot of women go back to normal.

And normal recreates the old body. And that's because the system never changed. The in-between. You got to the goal, but you did it in a quick, fast way. And some people aren't really even paying attention to what they're doing and why they're doing it. Or sometimes it's not even sustainable because we're restricting so much. But what didn't change is the system. You go back to doing what you were doing before, which is the old systems. So the system never changed.

If you still fear carbs, if you still under-eat protein, if you still skip workouts when you're stressed, if you still sleep five hours, if you emotionally eat every weekend, then you didn't transform. You temporarily altered the outcome. And this is why yo-yo dieting is so common. It goes: six weeks of intensity in whatever program you're jumping into, some results, you stop, you regain, and you repeat. You solve the outcome, but you never solve the behaviors and the patterns and the habits along the way.

Your body isn't the problem here. I just want to pinpoint that. A lot of people get frustrated as to why they can't lose the weight and keep it off. Or they think that they're stuck this way and it's them and it's their body. It is the behaviors that are built that are the problem. When you solve these problems at a results level, at an outcome level, at a goal level, you are only going to solve them temporarily.

When you solve them at a systems level, at a behavior level, at a habit level, you solve them sustainably. And that's the difference between a before and after photo and an identity-level change, which I've talked about many times in these episodes.

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So for that second point: achieving a goal, getting into a program and focusing on an outcome, is only the moment. It's not what helps you to change the system, which is going to be sustainable for your lifestyle. The behavior, the habits, the system that gets you to that goal, those things need to change. When you solve that at a systems level, you solve it sustainably.

Okay, let's dive in a little bit deeper. He goes a little bit deeper with point three. Many women believe, once I hit this goal, I'm going to be happy. And this is where goals can actually completely restrict your happiness. And this was me early on in my journey as well. I remember that I was like, okay, I'm going to do bodybuilding. And once I get to this goal, I'm going to feel comfortable and confident. I'm going to be on fire. My body happened for a day, and I gained 25 pounds back in one month, right? So it's that once-I-hit-this-goal-I'll-be-happy type of mentality.

We've all been there. Some of you are there right now. You're like, once I lose these 15 pounds, once I look good in these photos, once I fit my old jeans, once my stomach is flatter. And what happens here is you live in a delay. I'll be proud later. I'll be confident later. I'll feel good later. But the trap is, if your happiness depends on a future result, you are constantly behind, because life isn't linear. There are going to be plateaus. There are going to be ups and downs.

There's going to be stress. There's going to be travel. There are going to be times when life gets busy. There are going to be hormonal fluctuations. There are going to be weeks where progress feels invisible. If your emotional stability depends on the scale, you will feel unstable throughout your entire journey. But when you fall in love with the system, when you get satisfaction from hitting your protein goal in a day, or showing up to your workout, or executing your plan, or drinking your water, or refining your habits, or focusing on the narrative that you have in your mind around food, or going to bed early, or setting that alarm, right? With these systems, you fall in love with the journey. That's what it means. You fall in love with the journey.

When you do that, you win daily. You don't need the finish line to feel proud. You just need to feel aligned today, knowing that the actions you're taking, the steps you're taking, are aligned with that future goal. They're aligned with it. You don't need to be obsessed with it. You don't need to be goal-oriented all the time. You need to focus on the systems the majority of the time. Goals delay your happiness into the future. Systems allow you to be happy in the present.

Okay, and the last thing I want to talk about is something I see constantly within our WarriorBabe community, within the Facebook group. By the way, if you guys aren't yet a part of it, we have a free Facebook community, so you can just join our ecosystem. We're actually kicking off a challenge on March 9th. It's a consistency challenge, and we're carrying it through the rest of March. There's a really cool prize that you could win at the end if you stay consistent, and we have these trackers and points you accrue. So check it out. If you go to WarriorBabe, or you go to Facebook and type in WarriorBabe Community, it's a black banner. Join. Come on in. We'll even link it in the description below.

Okay, so this final point. I see constantly that when goals are handled incorrectly, they are going to create a yo-yo effect. What I mean by that is, think about a race. Someone signs up for a marathon. They train for months. They wake up early. They follow a program. They push through discomfort. Race day comes and they cross the finish line. There's a medal. There's a picture. There are accomplishments. There are people screaming, so excited. You won. You did the thing. And then your training stops, because the goal is gone. The urgency disappears. The structure dissolves. The accountability isn't there.

And this is exactly what happens, and I kind of talked about this in points one and two, with six-week programs, eight-week challenges, summer shreds, holiday slim-downs. There's hype, there's urgency, there's a finish line, there's pressure, there's accountability, there's a group of community showing up and doing the same thing. But when the finish line disappears and the goal is gone, so does your behavior.

And when your identity is, I'm trying to lose 15 pounds, what happens when you lose it? There's no longer a target. A lot of people stall at this point. They're like, what do I do now? And then the behaviors that got you there are lost. But if your identity becomes, I'm a woman who strength trains, I'm a woman who fuels intentionally, I focus on getting enough of my macros on a daily basis, I focus on getting enough protein, I'm a woman who focuses on progress and tracks and refines, there is no finish line. There's only refinement. It's part of the journey.

It's long-term thinking. True long-term thinking is almost goalless thinking. Not because goals are bad. I'm not saying goals are bad. But I think we need to stop attaching our minds to the goals and missing the opportunity of learning the systems in the middle, right? The goal stops being the point. The systems become the point. The standards become the point. The identity becomes the point. It's not about you taking one transformation photo or finishing one marathon race. It's about becoming the woman who doesn't restart every January, or restart after every program. This is how you build a sustainable lifestyle: these systems I'm talking about.

So I want to leave you guys with a thought-provoking question, and just sit with it. Where are you still thinking like a sprinter in your fitness journey? Where are you chasing intensity instead of building structure? Where are you chasing the goal instead of building the system? Because sprinters are going to burn bright, but builders build foundations, right? Sprinters constantly need something: motivation, emotional attachment, excitement. They need that emotional pull to do something. Builders, the ones that build the systems, rely on the systems.

Just take my life as an example. I don't jump into these quick fixes or fast-track diets. Over the last 10 to 11 years, I built systems that I just rely on on a daily basis. Because sprinters are going to crash and burn out. Builders, which is what I am... What I put on my story last week was, the compound effect is undefeated. It was a selfie inside the gym.

So if you zoom out 12 months: are you strength training consistently? Say you're strength training consistently. Say you hit your protein most days. Say you adjusted to the lifestyle instead of giving up. You didn't quit. You stayed instead of restarting. Dude, you won't even recognize yourself. And it's because you built consistency, not because you had hype and so much excitement. You were just consistent. You were consistent even on hard days. You still showed up. And maybe you didn't show up on a hard day, and it's okay. You're not going to lose your progress.

So if you take anything from today: stop chasing finish lines. Stop being so goal-oriented and try to detach yourself from it. Stop waiting for the motivation. Stop looking for the next reset. Stop tying so much weight to an outcome. The purpose of setting a goal is to win the game. But I want you guys to think of it like this: building and focusing on systems is what keeps you playing the game. And the women who play the long-term game are not sprinting towards a result. They're building the systems and the standards that they refuse to break. Or even if they fall off track, they are able to get right back on to the system.

And that's where the real transformation happens. That's how you become the woman who's never going to have to start over and over and over again.

All right. So I hope this episode encouraged you guys. I hope you found some motivation in this. I hope you feel empowered to look at your fitness journey just a little bit differently now, by focusing on how you can be 1% better in the systems you build daily, instead of being so tied to, I need to lose 15 pounds. Just start challenging yourself to think about it a little bit differently. All right, my friends. I love you all, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out.

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