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Using systems and habits to improve your life is a proven method to succeed. It requires seeing the work as a system and then adjusting your thoughts and behaviors to be able to take advantage of your opportunities in life.
Patterns are very important to systems thinkers. In order to understand complex systems, we often start by examining the visible patterns to start to figure out what is going on.
We aren’t likely to see the deeper levels of the systems immediately so we want see what the system regularly creates. What the system regularly creates then tips us off to the invisible structures and mental models controlling the system.
Read MoreMany of us who are naturally competitive constantly evaluate our own success and failures against our counterparts. We see others and use their achievements as measuring sticks.
But this sets us up for unhappiness because there will always be someone doing it better. We can’t possibly be the best at everything. Even the most successful people on the planet are successful in a few select areas not in everything.
Read MoreWe all view the world in different ways but one theme that I seem to come across is the notion that people are irrational. People aren’t logical and thoughtful they are emotional and petty.
Many of us see the world around us this way and we can find examples all over the place. We can point to some relative who makes poor decisions or a celebrity that seems to have it all but still gets caught in a scandal ruining the great career he or she spent years building. We can think of people we worked for and drivers on the road.
Read MoreI have a policy that I employ in my own person pursuit of improvement but also when I manage others. I have used it in many instances and it guides my philosophy of management.
The idea is that we develop an accurate assessment of our strengths and weakness. Then we work to get the weaknesses to an acceptable level and then put all of our other energy towards leveraging our strengths.
Read MoreMany times when we evaluate a system we see that elements of the system that we have control over are causing an outcome from the system that we don’t like.
It could be that we make bad decisions or that we have developed bad habits that suddenly become very sticky and hard to break. It could be that we created structures in our lives that hold us back.
Read MoreWe all have the little voice inside of us that seems to ramble on and on. I’ve heard sales trainers talk about the process of trying control this voice as little voice management. I’ve heard Buddhist refer to it as Monkey Brain. Whatever we call it, we can all probably understand this rambling internal voice and the messages it brings.
Whatever we call it or however we feel about it, we have to gain control over this constant stream of consciousness. Because it often follows patterns we can use the systems and habits approach to improvement in order to gain control.
Read MoreMost of us can think of things we want more of. We want more money. We want more time off. We want more time to travel. But if we try to move past mere wishes and dreams about more we can find something much more meaningful.
When I was younger I couldn’t really answer that question. If I tried to, it would simply be something superficial. I didn’t really know what I wanted.
Read MoreWhen I look back over my life, I see two distinct approaches that I have taken to life. Up until around high school and then again after about age 24, I had the approach that I wanted to improve.
This time is marked by constantly trying to get better. I remember when I was in middle school I worked out harder than most of the high school football players knowing that I wanted to improve and be able to play football when I got to high school.
Read MoreI have talked quite a bit about process goals versus outcome goals in my articles. I passionately believe that setting outcome goals is too broad. It is the lazy way to set a goal.
It says that we have an idea of what we dream about achieving so we make-up the specifics around it so we have a goal. Then we assume we just have to use more effort to reach the goal.
Read MoreFor the latest version of this article, click here.
Read MoreUsing the systems and habits approach to improvement you will start to make progress towards your goals. You will improve and get better. But it won’t be instant success. In fact, it will probably take a long time to realize your goals and feel that you made a significant improvement in any area.
This is because the systems and habits approach to improvement uses time to help us grow. Instead of hoping extreme effort will result in extreme results, we focus on subtle, consistent behavior changes.
Read MoreIn The Artist’s Way, author Julia Cameron has a line that is just great. Cameron says, “It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.”
I love that line. Too often when we want to improve to look better, we don’t realize that we won’t improve unless we ignore looking good temporarily while we focus more on improvement.
Read MoreIn the systems and habits approach to improvement we shift our focus from being perfect to being on making progress.
Making progress allows us to move forward without being overly concerned with mistakes along the way. Instead we take those mistakes and learn from them, rather than doing everything possible to avoid the mistake.
Read MoreEveryone is capable of improvement. Regardless of what you have accomplished in life or what you already tried and failed, you can improve, you can get better.
This might scare some people because if this is true then they feel they have wasted much of their life. But it is true. Everyone can improve and get better.
Read MoreWhen it comes to big companies and their marketing campaigns, even the most interesting campaigns tend to become very boring to me after a while. Maybe it is the fact that I like to root for the underdog and most major TV commercials or corporate slogans come from the opposite of an underdog.
But some seem to stick with me past the airdates of their commercials. One such phrase that seems to extend beyond the company that used it was with Nike and Just Do It.
Read MoreOne of the biggest benefits to using the systems and habits approach to improvement is that it gives us empowerment. It takes control over our life and puts it in our hands, not someone else’s.
Too often in life we see how external forces influence us. It could be a string of bad luck or someone treating us unfairly. But these external forces often become excuses rather than reasons because we allow them to control us.
Read MoreMost people think about life in moments. They think about the time they accomplished something, or met someone that had an impact on their life. They think about buying their first home or that family vacation they took.
But in systems thinking, we minimize the events in life and hold the process to be much more valuable. It isn’t that we ignore the events; it is just that we want to see more than the events. We want to see the patterns, structures and mental models present in the full system.
Read MoreThe systems and habits approach to improvement is all about making consistent behavior changes to help us reach our goals. It focuses our effort on changing our recurring behaviors in order to build better routines and processes.
Doing this will have some great impacts on our life. We will start to feel more in control, we will build confidence that we can change and improve, and we will start to be able to tackle any aspect of our life that we wish to see grow and get better.
Read MoreOne benefit to using the systems and habits approach to improvement is that you get to start building the right structures in your life. This allows you to make progress towards your goals and know that you are on the right track.
There is a calming effect from this because you gain a confidence that you are doing what you can to improve. Instead of constantly worrying if you are on the right track, you can point to the systems and habits in your life and take the right path forward.
Read MoreYou may have read a few articles on systems thinking and how to use systems and habits to improve. Now you may be wondering how to get started.
This is common. It is common because systems thinking seems so complex and there are a lot of different ways to look at a system.
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