Willpower is finite. It is not infinite. We all rely on willpower every day. Sometimes this gets us to avoid that donut at work or stops us from lashing out at our boss. Sometimes it is to keep studying for a test or deciding to go to the gym.
Willpower doesn’t last. We use it up and our ability to use it diminishes. Throughout the day, as we use it, we deplete it. This happens all the time and we don’t notice because it gets replenished from time to time when we sleep or relax.
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There is a lot written about systematic improvement. Most of the time this references some complex computer system, business process or environmental factor. But taking a systematic improvement mindset is also helpful when we are trying to reach our personal goals.
Most people take a haphazard approach to improvement in their lives. They just want to coast along and only work on improving after something motivates them.
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I’ve spent my whole career working on projects at many different organizations. From Fortune 1000 companies to working with local artists, I’ve seen how projects can take many different paths.
One of the most important things that I have found is that progress is crucial. But instead of focusing on making progress, most people get stuck trying for perfection.
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The world is becoming increasingly complex. Every year tax code expands, the rules around business change, and governments come up with new regulations. With all of the complexity it is easy to see why we often turn to linear thinking when faced with problems.
Linear thinking cuts through most of the information and focuses on 2 factors. It looks at cause and effect, or right and wrong, and tries to fit the situation into those factors and ignores everything else.
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We all have too much to do. We have competing priorities and people around us seem to want more and more from us.
Life gets complicated and the natural reaction for us is to try and do more. As things get added we keep adding to our to do lists.
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Setting goals can be a great way to take control and reach new levels of success. Setting a goal can put focus on an area and give a clear vision of where you want to end up.
But I have found that in some situations setting specific goals is an exercise in futility. Instead I needed to focus on the direction I want to go, not on setting a specific target to hit.
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Having a vision for the future is important. It is important in business to have a vision for a product, initiative or company and it is important for us to have a future state that we are working for.
But vision by itself is meaningless. Many people want things in life. They want to have more or be more or do more but they aren’t doing the things they need to do in order to reach that level.
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Recently my wife and I took our daughters to breakfast. After breakfast my 3-year-old decided that she wanted pie. We tried to explain to her that she couldn’t have pie right after eating breakfast.
But she had it in her head that she wanted pie. So she threw a temper tantrum to try and convince us to give her some pie.
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Years ago I worked for an organization that was trying to increase its revenue with some new, innovative products. The stated goals were all around driving customers to these new solutions to make money for the company.
But the company seemed like it was doing things that worked against its goal of increasing its customer base and driving more money into the organization. Many people became convinced that the leadership was deliberately trying to sabotage the organization.
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I’ve written several articles that detail the benefits of systems thinking over thinking linearly but the truth is that both ways of thinking have benefits.
While thinking linearly misses some important systematic information and can lead us down a path of failure when problem-solving it does have some advantages. But if we can utilize the systems thinking mindset and be aware of some potential limitations, we can effectively get the best of both worlds.
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There is a great quote by renowned systems thinker and author Peter Senge that says, “Business and human endeavors are systems…we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system. And wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.”
One of the things that I realized when I discovered systems thinking books and resources was that being able to think systematically helps break away from some of the inherent problems with thinking linearly. In addition, I realized how much systems thinking spills over into almost every aspect of our existence - from our health, the weather, cultural issues, politics, illness, etc.
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Years ago I was at a seminar and the speaker asked the audience to close their eyes and picture the color red. He said to think of red apples, red stop signs, red barns, and red strawberries.
After a minute or so he said to open your eyes. When I did, suddenly all of the red in the room came into focus. I saw the exit sign and the red sign for one of the sponsors.
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People are very reactionary. We tend to be complacent until something happens or we get some new information and then feel motivated to change.
But the problem is that the information that tends to be given to us is “event” data not trend or systematic data.
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Whenever we have multiple things that we want to do it can be difficult to know what to start on. Do we start with the big important goals or do we find some quick and easy ones to attack first?
Both approaches can be beneficial. They both can add value and can help us determine what to attack first.
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When I was younger I thought that if I was doing something that I didn’t want to do I should stop doing it and look for something else.
There were many times that I felt something wasn’t right and my response was to stop doing it and find something else. If I disliked my job I would quit and look for a better job. If I didn’t like doing yard work I would find a way to get out of doing it or I would let it go until it was a complete mess.
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One of the benefits to the systems and habits approach to improvement is that you are able to identify areas of inefficiency. You can see when you are wasting time, energy, resources etc.
In the various Lean business process improvement strategies, waste is used to describe areas that can be destructive to the business process and are unnecessary. But looking at waste through the Lean mindset is beneficial to our personal goals as well.
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Most of the time we see our goals as a straight line. Because we usually know what to do, we think we just need the motivation to actually do it.
Sometimes this helps us to reach our goals but many times this just leaves us frustrated. It isn’t as simple as it seems to improve and even when we hit specific goals we set, we can’t maintain that improvement over time.
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Many people feel that success happens in an instant. They assume that great inventions, artistic creations, profitable business ideas, sports victories and brilliant philosophical concepts are sudden.
This makes sense. The failure and hard work that lead to success can easily be overshadowed by the triumphant win.
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Recently I heard someone say that the past is a horrible master. They followed it up by saying that it is a great teacher.
At first I didn’t think much of this quote. It seems like another cliché that tries to convince us to let go of the past and not let it control us.
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