The Reason We Get Stuck and Miss Our Goals

Setting goals and objectives is commonplace in business and in one's personal life, but success or failure isn't rooted in the goals that you set or the strategy to reach those goals.  Whether you achieve a goal or not is determined by what you do to achieve, not what the goal was.  

I constantly struggled reaching goals until I learned about how to develop systems to achieve.  Learning this unlocked key areas of my life and for the first time I finally felt that I was turning my potential into actual growth and success.

When I first heard about how to use systems to improve, I was in the process of starting a business.  I wondered how certain businesses were able to succeed and overcome all sorts of obstacles.  How can McDonald's open anywhere in the world, hire high school students, provide a low quality hamburger  and still be so successful?  

I felt that there must be something else, something that I was missing.  After extensive research I realized that key to McDonald's success (or any franchise business for that matter) was that they weren't selling franchisees the rights to a product.  They were actually selling an advanced, tested, business system that all but guaranteed success.  

This was incredibly beneficial to me as I began building my first business.  It laid the foundation for me and I worked hard to try and understand how to incorporate systematic aspects into my business.  I learned even more when, years later, I worked with a family member to purchase and open a fitness franchise.  I was amazed to see such simple solutions to problems that frequently occurred and the focus on following the process instead of the product or service.  

Despite this knowledge of business systems, I still struggled with areas in my personal life such as my health or finances.  It wasn't until I started researching successful habits that I realized that a habit is nothing more than a system!  

From that moment forward I used the same systematic approach to everything in my life.  Suddenly I found myself consistently improving, rather than consistently falling short.  I realized that with better systems I actually had a chance to reach my goals.  Over time, I paid off over $10,000 in credit card debt, quit smoking, lost 35 lbs, earned an MBA, and wrote two motivational books.  It still took a lot of work, time and sacrifice, but what once felt impossible suddenly became probable with the right process.  Following the system took discipline, but once I enforced the systems in my life I was no longer struggling with these aspects of my personal life.

Understanding systems shifts your focus.  It makes certain things automatic.  It reduces stress and more accurately predicts where you are going.  Regardless of what goal you set or strategy you have to achieve that goal, understand that a focus on the underlying system is what will ultimately determine success or failure.