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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.
Have you ever set a goal and timeframe and thought that it was a foregone conclusion that you would hit all of your targets right on time but then struggled to even get traction?
I have. Many times. In fact, almost every goal I set seems much easier in my initial daydreaming than it really is. I don’t know exactly why but I feel that success will be certain.
Read MoreOur life is made up of systems. But most of the time we are so caught up in the daily ups and downs that we never pay attention to these systems.
Seeing the systems in your life isn’t absolutely necessary. We don’t have to pay any attention to them at all. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there and aren’t controlling aspects of your life all the time.
Read MoreWhenever goal-setting and the concept of using systems to succeed comes up, some people automatically assume that we are talking about some quick-fix “system” that instantly solves all of our problems and gives us massive amounts of money and success.
This is completely the opposite of the systems and habits approach to improvement. While systems thinking may give us a different perspective on how to improve and will likely shed light on leverage points that can make improvement more likely, it still requires hard work and diligence.
Read MorePeople like to talk about New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of each year. They set goals and think about areas of their life that they wish were different.
The logical thing is to set a goal or resolution to change something about you. Unfortunately the failure rate of New Year’s resolutions is about 80% by February. What tends to happen is that we just keep falling back to old habits and the motivation fades.
Read MoreAdjusting your habits to help you reach your goals can be a great way to succeed but too often people ignore that method to reach for the stars. “Shoot for the moon so if you miss you will still be among the stars,” they say.
So we start out with enough motivation to fill a house. We sit on our couch and talk ourselves into a dream and assume we will just breeze past adversity when it shows up. Why not, we feel the motivation now so we assume we will have it when we need it.
Read MoreWhen something bad happens, what goes through your mind? Do you start to think about the fairness or unfairness of the situation? Do you feel like a victim?
Many people, including me at times, have a natural pattern that involves looking for excuses and playing the victim. It is as if we just need a little negative to suddenly dive into a pity party.
Read MoreWhen I talk to people about their goals and aspirations, I often find that feel they just don’t know what to do. But that isn’t the case.
The more I ask about what it is that they want, they usually state that they should do this or that, but that they just can’t seem to do it enough to see any benefit.
Read MoreNick Saban is one of the best coaches in college football. Many would argue that he has accomplished more than any other coach in history, even though he doesn’t look to be done with coaching any time soon and only seems to get better every year.
With this incredible success, people naturally want to look at what he does and how he thinks in order to reach that extreme level. One perspective I’ve heard Nick Saban mention in interviews is the inner scoreboard versus the outer scoreboard.
Read MoreThis year, in American professional football, the Cleveland Browns have been interesting to watch. I have lived in Cleveland my whole life so I tend to watch the Browns. Until this season it has mostly been in agony.
But this year they look competitive. They aren’t the best team in the league or even in their division. But they look competitive and for Browns fans that is a unique position to be in towards the end of the year.
Read MoreThe world is filled with systems. Everything around us is a system. Our habits and routines are systems. The way we think and process information are systems.
We can use this to our advantage by applying systems principles to our personal quest for improvement and success. We can take the systems approach to improvement to fine-tune our skills, abilities, understanding, etc. to take us towards happiness and success.
Read MoreEveryone deserves to be happy. Everyone deserves to be able to be successful too. Unfortunately, most people make choices that keep them from being happy and successful. They make decisions that are shortsighted and destructive because they assume they can change later.
The idea of doing something later is elusive. It seems like it should be easy but each time you are presented with the choice to do the right thing you can push off doing what you know you should and instead fall back the idea of doing it later.
Read MoreI listen to a lot of reggae music. The upbeat vibe and positive lyrics tend to uplift my mood. I also find the musical patterns that are played in reggae music are interesting and unique.
One of the recurring themes in reggae music is to start a revolution. They are often speaking about political issues and revolting against oppressive governments that try and strip the rights away from its people.
Read MoreFear is something that everyone experiences at some point. Sometimes fear is good. It tells us that there might be danger and we should pay attention.
But most of the fears that we feel in our daily lives are misguided. They are due to a pressure that we put on ourselves that magnifies a potential issue.
Read MoreIn the systems and habits approach to improvement we work to achieve much with little effort. Instead of effort and motivation we rely on small changes to key aspects of the systems and habits in our lives.
These changes include changes to our routines, habits, processes, etc. In systems thinking these are referred to as leverage points because they often hold great ability to change the outcome with minimal input.
Read MorePatterns in life are important yet often ignored. They unlock meaning when we might misjudge something as coincidence or happenstance.
But most people are horrible at spotting patterns. Since most of society is very event-based and thinking linearly, they miss important nudges that something is wrong. Instead of seeing the pattern and then making a change, they simply continue to find some scapegoat instead of really searching for the root causes of these events.
Read MoreLife is complicated. It is difficult to know what to think about our existence, our life, our death etc. Why are we here and why were we created?
These are thoughts that have baffled mankind. Many people simply give up on trying to understand and simply go through the motions of life.
Read MoreWhen we set a goal we are usually filled with motivation. We want to reach that goal so we can enjoy the rewards of getting there and feel the pride associated with doing something we set out to do.
As we get started we want to jump right to action and start moving. This is a good thing and can help start you on your path towards success.
Read MoreSystems thinking allows us to see a larger picture of life. We see more than the parts; we see the whole. We see the connections of variables that make up the full system and relationships between various aspects of the system.
Think of a complex system such as a car. There are many aspects of the vehicle that are important and having one part fail can mean the car won’t operate properly. But it is the interconnection of these parts in just the right way that means a car will operate. Take a pile of the same parts, not configured properly and it won’t run.
Read MoreWhen I was growing up I heard a lot of advice around trusting yourself. It could be that someone said to trust that little voice inside of you or to trust your gut.
But for me, this wasn’t always great advice. Often that little voice was what the Buddhists call the monkey mind. It was filled with incessant, nagging, worrying thoughts that often raced through my mind and easily got out of control.
Read MoreWhen we study systems thinking, one of the things that we find is that there are leverage points within a system. Leverage points are the crucial elements that, when changed, create a major change in system output.
The current way we drive a car represents using many leverage points. Instead of having to get out and use all our might to turn the tires, we simply use our power steering and put little effort to get the tires to turn. The power steering system represents a leverage point. It leverages our strength so that we can do more (move the tires) with less effort (because of the power steering system).
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