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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.
Being a systems thinker, it is easy to get consumed by the mechanical parts of systems. There is an element that is perfectly logical.
But life isn’t as logical. Things happen that make sense. But things happen that don’t make sense. In fact, sometimes things happen that are heartless and cold and illogical.
Read MoreWhen using the systems and habits approach to improvement, we have to learn how to be patient. Improvement isn’t instant. We don’t wake up after one day of work with rewards and accomplishment.
Instead, it is a long, often grueling, process. We need to put in place the right systems and habits and then work those to ingrain them in our lives.
Read MoreWhy is it that the enjoyable things in life and the things we should do in life seem worlds apart? Why can’t eating bacon cheeseburgers be healthy? Why doesn’t broccoli taste better if it is healthy for us?
It isn’t only food. Why isn’t sitting around relaxing better for our health? Instead, we have to work hard physically. We have to sweat. We have to breathe hard.
Read MoreStudying systems and habits for the past 20 years, I’ve learned the value of looking at the full systems and applying habit changes to our daily lives. It is more than breaking some bad habits. It is more than finding meaning behind our actions.
The benefit of working to instill positive habits is that we can make progress and improve our lives. When we stop making effort the only factor, we start to make real progress.
Read MoreLast Sunday my family decided to set up dominoes. We had a blast thinking up different structures to use. We use different marbles, blocks, tubes, etc. to create a series of reactions.
The more we played, the more I thought about the systems of life. Life isn’t as perfectly set up as the dominoes but in many ways follows the same pattern.
Read MoreI’ve worked with many great leaders. The best ones that I have had the pleasure of working alongside all have one characteristic in common.
They can see the bigger picture when problems arise. They remain calm and work through the problem, knowing that the best solution will come with strategic thought, not raw emotion.
Read MoreBeing able to learn a lesson and then apply the newfound wisdom seems easy. It seems that we all should be able to do it.
But it is much easier said than done. While most of us hear about ways to better ourselves, we rarely apply the insight for the long term.
Read MorePatterns are important. They help us to understand the world around us. We find the commonality in life and then determine what to expect.
If we get too caught up in the one-off, we ignore the patterns. We keep seeing past the lessons. We can’t make sense of things.
Read MoreThe other day I was having a discussion with a friend. I was explaining some frustration. I said that I experienced a failure in an area where I thought I had it all together.
It caught me off guard. I didn’t expect it to end up the way it did. I was explaining that it shook my confidence and made me start to question other areas.
Read MoreThe other day I heard an advertisement that said, “Your Opportunity Awaits.” They were trying to sell something. The message was that there is opportunity but first you have to buy their product.
From a marketing perspective they follow a common theme. The marketer wants to create a gap between what you want and what you have. Then they explain how their product will fill the gap and get you what you want.
Read MoreBeing creative in a business environment comes easy for some, but for most of us, it is challenging to come up with innovative and unique solutions to our most pressing problems.
It's typically easy to see why a problem occurred or even suggest what everyone else should do to solve the problem. But when it's our responsibility to address the issue, that's when things get complicated. We often see unlimited options and analyze the consequences of each choice. We see an uphill battle with uncertain outcomes. However, we can overcome the fear of the unknown and hone in on the best available option. We can get creative. And the good news is that if being creative isn’t innate for you, there are specific action steps to choosing a path forward.
Read MoreWe all get caught up in feeling anxious about the obstacles in our way. We all face problems, and we want them fixed right away. When the problems keep piling up, we get overwhelmed and want to fix them all right away.
Jumping from problem to problem without fixing the system doesn’t make anything better in the long-term. It is important to see things from a higher perspective. We need to see that the problem of the day feels stronger today that it will in a month, or a year.
Read MoreThere is an interesting phenomenon that happens when we study winners. It could be that we want to see how the successful business found its footing. It could be that we want to see how the Super Bowl champ won it all. It could be that we evaluate the tactics of the award-winning individual.
If we single out the winners, we will hear similar refrain. They will attribute their success to their hard work and the long hours. If they are humble, they will credit their support team and those that helped.
Read MoreVariety is the spice of life. Doing the same thing over and over can become mundane and boring. While we appreciate doing things that we always have, we have to be willing to do something different if we want different results.
Yet the systems and habits approach to improvement is all about consistency. Habits only form when we take the same steps. If we keep changing everything, we won’t form the routine needed.
Read MoreWe can all learn to train our mind. The random thoughts in our heads come and go. Some call it our monkey brain because it jumps around and can’t seem to sit still.
This often creates a sense of helplessness when it comes to our thoughts. We can’t control what fleeting concepts come into focus.
Read MoreAre you a generally unlucky person? Do you seem to miss opportunities? Many unlucky people never realize that the reason they are unlucky is because of them, not fate.
I once heard someone say that luck is preparedness meeting opportunity. They said that they were very lucky. But the only reason they could capitalize on that luck was because they already did the work.
Read MoreSystems thinking helps us to see the interconnectedness in life. It allows us to see more than the superficial, news-story, right-in-front-of-our-face view. It provides more understanding. It clues us in to what is going on. It gives us more to life.
I always think about the old story about the village experiencing an elephant for the first time. Each member of the village is blindfolded and then taken into a tent. The tent contains an elephant.
Read MoreWhen I was in college earning a psychology degree I studied Abraham Maslow. Maslow brought the world of psychology a great deal. His insights are still relevant today.
Maslow is most known for his hierarchy of needs. This is a pyramid structure that explains human motivation.
Read MoreWhen you start to use the systems and habits approach to improvement what you are really doing is focusing on execution. You focus on how to improve.
While this may seem obvious, the benefits are incredible. Most people avoid execution and instead put their focus on everything but execution.
Read MoreWhen I was younger I formed a bunch of bad habits. I smoked. I drank a lot. I ate extremely unhealthy food on a regular basis. I never exercised.
I remember during those days being frustrated that I couldn’t seem to change. When I decided I wanted to quit smoking people would give me all sorts of advice.
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