Here is something I say out loud, to nobody, before I do it: I am about to watch a garbage YouTube video that is going to be detrimental to my mental health and decrease my focus.
Sometimes I say it and then watch the video anyway. But less often than I used to. I'll come back to why that works at the end, because it only makes sense once you have the other piece — and the other piece is a goal far enough away to measure things against.
What is reverse goal setting?
Reverse goal setting means you start at the furthest point out and walk backwards toward today, instead of starting at today and planning forwards.
Ten years. Five years. Three. Two. One. At each rung you ask the same question: who do I need to be at this point in order to reach the one above it?
That's the whole method. It sounds like a small change in direction and it isn't.
Why does planning forwards make your goals smaller?
Because your mind looks at where you are right now and lowballs you.
If you start from today and plan a year out, your brain sees your current self and estimates from there. Maybe they can put on a few pounds. Maybe they can lose a few pounds. It plans a slightly better version of the person already standing there, because that person is the only evidence it has.
You never get to find out what you were actually capable of, because the ceiling got set by the floor.
Now flip it. Start at your peak — the best version of you, ten years out, no hedging — and work down. You never lose your potential, because you started at your potential. Every rung below it is just logistics. The question stops being what could I realistically do this year and becomes this is who I can become; how do I get there?
Nobody likes working backwards. That's exactly what they're missing.
The 10-5-3-2-1 ladder
Write these down. Not in your head — on paper or in a note, where you can see all five at once.
- Ten years. Who do you want to be when that time comes? Be specific and be unreasonable. This is the only rung where you're allowed to not be practical.
- Five years. Who do you need to be in five years to reach that ten-year person? What do you need to have? What skills do you need? What does your bank account need to look like? The more descriptive you get, the better.
- Three years. Same question, one rung down. Who do you need to be in three years to get to that five-year mark?
- Two years. Who do you need to be in two years to get to the three?
- One year. Who do you need to be, and what do you need to have, in one year to get to the two?
Notice that all five of those are still big goals. Most people hear "small goal" and think weekly or monthly. I think a small goal is a year. A year out is the bottom of this ladder, not the top of it.
Goals vs systems: what's the difference?
Here's the hot take. I don't set small goals at all. Below one year, I don't use goals — I use systems.
The distinction is simple and it matters:
- A goal is something you are trying to obtain.
- A system is something you do every day in order to obtain it.
So: forget small goals. Replace them with systems and habits, and point those systems at the ladder you just built.
Why you need systems and not willpower
You can have goals and never reach them, and it usually isn't because the goals were wrong. It's because humans fall back to who they are. They do not rise up to who they want to be.
When things get hard, nobody performs their aspiration. They perform their baseline. They fall back to their original self.
People push back on this with David Goggins — he rises up, right? No. He falls back too. He just spent years rebuilding what he falls back into. He started somewhere very different and changed himself mentally, by changing his systems, until his floor was so high that collapsing onto it looks like performing to everyone else. But he's still falling back. He just built a better thing to fall back onto.
That's what a system does. It doesn't give you more willpower on your worst day. It raises the floor your worst day lands on.
How systems turn into identity
Waking up early and making your bed is a system. Do it once, and you did a thing. Do it every day for six months, and you are a person who wakes up and makes their bed.
See the shift? One is okay, I did it. The other is okay, I'm this person.
You cook one meal and you're not a chef. That's true. But I've been cooking my own meals for a couple of months now, and I can say I'm someone who cooks their own meals — and I know it's real because of what happens under pressure. Two months ago, if I was hungry and in a time crunch, I'd have bought something. Now, in that exact same situation, I cook. Nothing about the situation changed. The person in it did.
Are habits good or bad?
Neither, and this is the part that makes the ladder worth building.
There is no such thing as a good habit or a bad habit. There are habits that bring you toward your goals and habits that take you away from them. That's it. That's the only test.
Which means the same behaviour lands in different columns for different people. If you want to be a professional gamer, playing video games is a good system for you. If you want to be a bodybuilder, a good system is tracking your food instead of just eating it. Same activity, opposite verdicts, and the only thing that decided it was the ten-year goal.
This is why you can't fix your habits before you build the ladder. Without it you're sorting things with no ruler.
How do you find habits you don't know you have?
Here's the uncomfortable part: your systems are unconscious. You didn't choose most of them. You just do them.
Mine: I sit down with a meal and put on a garbage reality show. Every time I sit down. Clockwork. I never once decided to do that. Some people play video games while they eat. Some people read the news at 6pm every day. Nobody scheduled any of it.
So the first job isn't fixing anything. It's noticing.
Go through one day and observe your systems. Write them down as you catch them. Don't change anything yet. Don't get upset about them and don't get excited about them. Just observe. If you don't deliberately look for them, you'll never see them — you'll just keep doing them.
Then, and only then, sort each one: toward the ten-year you, or away from them.
The announce method: how to break a bad habit
Now back to the thing I said at the top.
When you're about to do a habit you've filed under "away," announce it out loud before you do it — and include the problem it causes. Both halves are required. "I'm about to watch a garbage YouTube video" does nothing on its own. "I'm about to watch a garbage YouTube video, which is going to be detrimental to my mental health and decrease my focus" does something, because now you're saying the cost out loud in the same breath as the intention.
I'll be honest with you: this doesn't just change your life, and there are still times I announce something and do it anyway. That's where discipline comes in and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
But it works more often than it doesn't, and here's the mechanism. Most bad habits survive in the gap between doing and knowing. Announcing closes the gap. Once you've said why it's bad, out loud, in your own voice, you're less likely to go through with it — because why would you do something in the exact moment you've just explained why you shouldn't?
Think about cigarettes. You never see a smoker announce it. Nobody says "I'm about to smoke this cigarette, which is going to destroy my lungs, and I probably won't be able to breathe properly, and I'll likely die earlier than I need to." If people said that every time, a lot fewer people would smoke.
One caveat and I mean it: if it's something you have genuinely tried to stop and couldn't — a substance, a compulsion, something with a physical grip on you — that's a doctor, not a calendar and not a sentence you say out loud. This method is for the ordinary unconscious stuff.
Why structured people are the creative ones
Here's the payoff nobody expects.
Once your good habits are automatic, you stop spending anything on them. Someone with a real system wakes up, trains, eats, works — and doesn't have to think about any of it. That capacity goes somewhere else.
This is why the most creative people have the most structure in their lives. And the people with no structure at all are usually the least creative ones, which is the opposite of what everybody assumes.
The reason is simple. Your mind is a muscle. When you do bicep curls, your bicep gets tired — that's not a character flaw, it's just how muscle works. Thinking is the same. Someone spending all day on should I go to the gym or not, what should I eat today, should I start now or later has burned through the same capacity by noon, and there's nothing left for the work that actually needed a brain.
Structure isn't the opposite of creativity. It's what pays for it.
Your homework
Two things. Neither costs money and both fit in one page.
- Build the ladder. Ten, five, three, two, one. Who you need to be at each rung to reach the one above it. Write it where you'll see it.
- Observe one day. A day in the life of you. Every system you run without deciding to. Change nothing on day one — just catch them. Then sort each one: toward your big goal, or away from it.
Everything else in this article is context for those two pages of writing.
Frequently asked questions
What is reverse goal setting?
Setting your furthest goal first and working backwards to today, rather than planning forwards from where you currently are. Typically ten years, then five, three, two and one, asking at each step who you need to be to reach the rung above it. The point is that starting at the far end stops your current circumstances from setting the ceiling.
Why should I work backwards instead of forwards?
Because when you plan forwards, your mind estimates from the person you are today and produces a slightly improved version of them. Working backwards sets the target before the arithmetic starts, so the plan is built to reach the goal rather than the goal being trimmed to fit the plan. This is my own experience, not a study — but it's the difference I noticed once I stopped doing it the other way.
What's the difference between a goal and a system?
A goal is something you're trying to obtain. A system is something you do every day in order to obtain it. Goals live at the year mark and above; below a year, I don't use goals at all, I use systems.
How do I know if a habit is bad?
Ask whether it takes you toward your ten-year goal or away from it. That's the entire test, and it's why the ladder comes first — without a goal far enough out, you have no ruler and you end up sorting habits by whether they feel virtuous, which is a different and much less useful question.
How do I break a bad habit?
Notice it first — most of them are unconscious, so spend a day just observing before you try to change anything. Then use the announce method: say the habit and the specific problem it causes out loud, before you do it. It won't stop you every time. It stops you more often than saying nothing, because it removes the ability to do it without knowing.
How long does it take for a habit to become automatic?
It depends on the habit and on how long you've been doing the one you're replacing. A few days of something isn't a habit and you can drop it instantly. Something you've run for years is a different job. What's consistent is that consistency is the whole mechanism — there isn't a shortcut underneath it, and anyone giving you a fixed number is guessing.
Get better, together.