Systems, Goals, and Monkey Paws
Table of Content
The Monkey Paw Problem
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, makes a compelling case: focus on systems, not goals. Systems are the rituals and practices we build into everyday life. Writing five pages a day beats dreaming about becoming Hemingway. Cooking one healthy meal tonight beats fantasizing about having six-pack abs someday.
Here’s my twist: goals can backfire. I call it The Monkey Paw Problem.
In W.W. Jacobs’ 1902 short story The Monkey’s Paw, a cursed talisman grants wishes, but always at a cost. You get what you asked for, but not what you wanted. Wish to pay off your mortgage? You might get the money through the insurance payout after a loved one dies. Wish to lose weight? Dysentery will do the trick.
Goals can work the same way. They’re often blunt instruments that fail to capture the full complexity of life. And since we’re not very good at knowing what we truly want, they can backfire.
Three culprits drive the disconnect between the goals we set and the lives we actually live:
Affective Forecasting Errors (we mispredict our feelings)
The Hedonic Treadmill (we adapt too quickly)
Lack of Self-Insight (we chase the wrong thing)
Affective Forecasting: Our Feelings Mislead Us
We routinely misjudge:
Overestimating how painful setbacks will be
Overhyping how amazing achievements will feel
Underestimating how quickly we recover
We procrastinate on “scary” tasks that aren’t actually that bad, and we feel deflated when achievements don’t deliver the high we imagined Instead of predicting feelings, sample reality. Do the thing in a small, repeatable way. Let real experience, not imagination, guide you.
The Hedonic Treadmill: Running in Place
Humans are baseline-seekers. You can win the lottery or get in a car crash, and in both cases you’ll return to your emotional average faster than you think. That’s why goals often feel anticlimactic. They stretch the rubber band of life, but it always snaps back.
Design daily rituals that shift your baseline. Meditate, exercise, write, connect. Whatever identity-level practices keep you growing.
Self-Insight Traps: Wanting the Wrong Thing
We often chases symbols instead of substance:
Fame, when what we need is belonging
Fortune, when what we crave is security
Achievement, when what we seek is meaning
Ask yourself: What feeling do I expect this goal to deliver? Then design a system that cultivates that feeling directly.
Washington and Napoleon
History offers reminders of how misleading outcomes can be. George Washington lost most of the battles he fought, yet he won the war for American independence. Napoleon won nearly every battle he fought, yet he lost the Napoleonic wars.
You can’t judge success or failure too quickly. What looks like progress may set up disaster. What feels like defeat may open the path to victory.
The Farmer’s Horse
There’s an old story about a farmer whose horse runs away. His neighbors pity him, but he says, “Maybe it’s bad he ran away, maybe it’s good he ran away, who knows.” The horse later returns with a herd. His neighbors celebrate, but again he says, “Maybe it’s good that I’ve got these new horses now, maybe it’s bad. We’ll see.” Soon after, his son breaks his leg taming one of the new horses. The neighbors console him, but he simply says, “We’ll see how it works out.” Later, war comes, and his son is spared from the draft because of his injury.
We are like the farmer’s neighbors, quick to declare victories and defeats. But the truth is, we cannot know in the moment how things will play out. That is why systems matter. They give us a steady way of living and working, regardless of how fortune shifts. Goals rise and fall. Outcomes twist and surprise. Systems carry us forward.