Seeing Systems On the Playground

Over the years I’ve learned how to see systems in life. This has been an incredible advantage throughout my personal and business life.

But I am not unique. I’ve read hundreds of books that promote the idea of using systems to see the world and then adjust to optimize the system to benefit from it.

People everywhere are using this to grow and achieve. If you can learn to unlock this key ability the world changes. You stop feeling victimized and realize your control within the systems that you complained about.

You unlock the ability to change and improve. You learn what parts of the system can be tweaked and what parts are not worth addressing. You build better habits in your life because you realize habits are types of systems and follow similar principles.

Despite the value of seeing systems, most people remain blind. They can’t break through linear thinking to see the full system and the many interconnected elements. Because they don’t even see the system, they have no idea how to improve within the immense and overlapping systems in life.

In Focus – The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman, the author says, “Here’s the catch. We are prepared by our biology to eat and sleep, mate and nurture, fight-or-flee, and exhibit all the other built-in survival responses in the human repertoire. But as we’ve seen, there are no neural systems dedicated to understanding the larger systems within which all this occurs.”

He goes on to say, “Systems are, at first glance, invisible to our brain – we have no direct perception of any of the multitude of systems that dictate the realities of our lives.”

Often, it feels as though we are pushing down on a teeter totter on the playground. However, when the other side rises, we get confused and frustrated by this, blaming some mystical force for its movement.

So, we run to the other side to push it down. Then we get frustrated that all our hard work to push the first side down vanishes and we can’t quite figure out why we aren’t making more progress.

Think about it. How many people do you know that keep doing the same things but expecting different results? They make the same mistakes over and over. They keep doing what they know they shouldn’t do. They can’t quite muster the willpower to do those things they know they should do.

The disconnect is the inability to transfer that desire to something tangible. It remains an elusive want. They can’t even make progress towards it because they keep getting in their own way. But they don’t see it.

Seeing the big picture will help. Focusing on the systems will give you the insight to be able to make lasting change. You will see how the system functions. You will see the areas where you are perpetuating the system. You will see how various elements of your desires all intersect and impact each other. Sometimes they even conflict with each other.

You want to lose weight, but you want the joy associated with certain foods. That means the full system contains both. When hunger hits, you crave those delicious foods, not the nourishment from the healthy, bland food. But this is all a part of the same system, just like the teeter totter.

You want to advance your career for the extra money, but you don’t want the extra stress from managing people. Instead of being fine with your current role and learning to be content, you keep telling yourself that you deserve more of the rewards that fall just out of reach.

You want a new job but can’t muster the energy to apply to job after job, jumping through everyone’s hoops when you spend all day doing that for your horrible boss. Use your free time to destress and enjoy yourself, or punish yourself more by applying to jobs and dealing with the frustrations around obtaining a new position?

Seeing systems doesn’t make these things magical. Sometimes it feels as though a new systems thinker will observe an almost mystical aspect to it. The systems give you more understanding.

They give you more options to interact with the system to get what you want. But sometimes, it shows you that what you say you want isn’t worth the efforts and sacrifices. Sure, the benefits are great, but the path to obtain them will take more than you receive in the end.

The ability to remove these blinders and see the full system will give you the ability to change in ways you never thought possible. They will give you an understanding of life that is more thorough. Often, they will help you realize that the things you say you want, you don’t really care about and you should, instead, learn to be content with what you have.

Think about the teeter totter. Systems thinking will tell you that you can have someone else help keep them down, although you still won’t have both sitting on the ground. Or you find that middle point (leverage point) and break that piece of the system to have both sides on the ground.

Or the system shows you that this is a toy that is supposed to be fun! The goal isn’t to have either side remain on the ground. The goal is to enjoy going up and down, floating upward and then riding it down. Back and forth, with someone else, you enjoy the moment.

Or at a minimum you can realize the challenge of having both sides on the ground at once with breaking the system or asking someone to help and become ok with way it is. You become content with the way the system is. Or you stop interacting with the teeter totter and move over to the swings where you have more control in how you experience and enjoy them.