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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.
We all want to improve. We want better relationships, greater success, more freedom and increasing wealth.
But the behaviors that most people turn to are very low-leverage behaviors. They don’t rely on systems thinking and instead fall back on beliefs about change that may not be accurate.
Read MoreMost people that I know are busy. They have errands to run, bills to pay, things to do. They work long hours and always seem frustrated and busy.
Years ago, as I thought about this, I found it odd. For being so busy, a lot of people I knew weren’t actually doing anything too productive. They weren’t necessarily getting big things done
Read MoreFailure is a natural part of life. Our entire childhood is about learning limits. We try something and learn from the outcome.
I watch my daughters do this all the time. My two-year-old daughter is very adventurous. She climbs all over things and shows little fear as she pushes beyond what she had previously done.
Read MoreLife is all about risk. Every day we take risks. Some risks are obvious and some are subtle.
Every time we walk down the street we risk getting hit by a car or falling and twisting an ankle. When we drive in our cars we are risking an accident.
Read MoreI love to learn new things. I took a wine tour about a year ago at a local winery. While I enjoyed a little relaxation, time with my wife and some great wine, I was surprised that when we took a tour of the facility I was so entertained.
Part of it was the incredible true story about the property, but more than that, I started to realize that I just really enjoy learning something new. I learned about the history and famous criminals who took part in a shoot-out with police there in 1922. I learned about the process of making wine. I learned about the architecture of the various buildings.
Read MoreWhen you set out to improve something about your life, you are usually filled with optimism and hope. You dream about success and what it will feel like to have reached your goal.
But as soon as you start out, you will likely hit some roadblocks. Usually our dreams require us to work hard and overcome adversity in order to realize our vision.
Read MoreIn systems thinking, the concept of the feedback loop can be used to gain insight into what is happening in a situation. Feedback loops are everywhere and surface often in our daily lives.
One such feedback loop is discussed in an article from Psychology Today titled Miserable and Middle Aged? Is something Wrong with You? by Pamela B. Paresky, Ph.D. She says, “When people are not content with life, [Jonathon] Rauch explains, they can start to feel unhappy about being unhappy. Then being unhappy about being unhappy makes them feel even worse, and the feedback loop creates a downward spiral, leading to an ever deepening hole of dissatisfaction.”
Read MoreMost people that set out in life to achieve something start out with too little planning. They throw together a plan in their heads and refuse to evaluate the full system around what they hope to get.
This may sound like a solid strategy in today’s ever-changing world, but it isn’t. Too often when I see people start out with this loose, barely-there plan, they end up being too rigid to adjust once they set out.
Read MoreKnowledge and data are important in systematic improvement but those alone will not produce success. We have to be able to take that information and turn it into actionable steps that we can then take.
The action element that occurs after the evaluation is incredibly important. I have met many people throughout my career that got stuck in analysis paralysis. They just kept analyzing and researching but never really moved to action to test out their idea.
Read MoreWhen we evaluate success we often find terms such as luck and talent dominating our concepts. We point to hard work and time spent training.
While these are all aspects of the journey towards excellence, many argue that these are merely vague generalities that are only applied after success. One of the best articles to address this fallacy is The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers by Daniel F. Chambliss.
Read MoreMost people see failure as something awful that provides pain and heartache without anything positive. But most success stories have elements of failure interspersed with achievements.
Failure is a necessary aspect of growth. If we all simply strive to fail less, all we end up doing is what we are already doing. We never really know our limits or what we are capable of.
Read MorePointing out people who have great accomplishments might mislead you to thinking that success is easily defined. It is not. It is often vague, with our judgment playing a larger role than we realize.
Yet most people think of success in concrete terms. They think more money and more awards are distinguishing factors for the successful. They think more friendships or longer tenure mean someone is more successful.
Read MoreSystems are everywhere and I often say that everything is a system. Once you start studying systems thinking it is hard not to see the patterns and structures in place all over.
Many times we are a part of the system and never even realize it. We go through the motions and assume we have complete freedom, but in reality we are completely unaware that the system has great influence over us.
Read MoreClimbing the ladder, or climbing the corporate ladder, has become synonymous with growing a career sometimes through greed and sometimes by working hard. It incites a different emotional response from different people.
But climbing a ladder is very similar to the systems and habits approach to improvement. Both rely on small, step by step action to get closer to a goal.
Read MoreThe systems and habits approach to improvement is a great method for slowly improving over time. It can help improve in areas where you struggle and leverage your strengths to accomplish more.
But the true value of working towards improvement is because you can slowly close the gap between the life you had hoped for and the life you have.
Read MoreI write a lot about change. It seems that change is a factor in everyone’s life. Sometimes this change is a positive one, sometimes negative. Sometimes change is sought after and other times we try to avoid it.
While many of us want the world around us to change to better fit us, the reality is that it rarely does. In fact, many times things change and force us to adjust.
Read MoreWhat if you could design any life that you want? What if you could determine the various aspects of your life and wave a magic wand to have it turn into reality?
Most people would have success, happiness, strong relationships, and be well liked by those around them. They would be praised for their work ethic and intelligence but remain humble enough to take obstacles in stride and face reality when things get difficult.
Read MoreMany times in life we come across a conflict. It usually occurs because we see others going in one direction but we feel the opposite direction is the right one for us.
It might seem easy to contradict the crowd and chart your own path. Plenty of people have done so and gained extraordinary fame and riches. But even if armed with that insight, we all still have a tendency to stick with the crowd.
Read MoreRecently I read an article that looked at health and fitness apps on the iPhone and discussed which ones were the best.
The article started out innocently enough with the author downloading and trying several apps at a time. After quitting each app, she would explain why the app was a failure and wouldn’t help someone reach his or her goals.
Read MoreWe all strive for mental congruity and balance between our thoughts and our actions. It causes discomfort when the things we do and the things we think are not in balance.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term for the mental conflict that we have when our beliefs and our behaviors diverge. We have a strong belief about something but our actions don’t seem to follow along.
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