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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.
When you look at your life and where you want to go, ask yourself what path you are on. Are you confidently moving forward, progressing towards your idea of success?
Or are you spending your time moving further and further from your goals all the while unsure of why you keep moving further away?
Read MoreI’m currently reading the book Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. It is a great book that dives into the thinking, perspectives, motivation, tools, etc. of very successful individuals.
My favorite one so far is the one on Scott Adams. Adams is the author of the Dilbert cartoon.
Read MoreWe all follow routines and process in life. We all follow similar patterns. This could be how we go to sleep at night, how we wake up, the drive we take to work, the way we drive our car, the way we respond to criticism, the way we strive to succeed, the way we respond to obstacles etc. etc.
But most people never pay attention to these. They just take them all for granted and don’t realize how powerful these are.
Read MoreThere is a saying that we need to take the good with the bad. Sometimes that is reversed and we say to take the bad with the good. The idea is that we have to understand that there is good and bad in everything and we can’t always separate out the good from the bad.
This aligns perfectly with systems thinking. In systems thinking we break away from seeing simple linear relationships to see the full, complex system. We see the various elements and how they all interconnect and interrelate.
Read MoreFrom time to time I stumble upon an article on online that talks about passion. The narrative seems to be the same as other articles on the topic.
It starts by assuming the reading is unhappy in their current pursuits. The author argues that what is missing is passion and that the only way to find their passion is to quit their day job immediately to find this passion.
Read MoreEveryone has a similar but different definition of success. Some people feel it is to achieve something great. Some people feel it is to create something. Some people feel it is about how much money or awards you obtain.
But however you personally choose to define success, learn to see the larger system around that success. Is that person causing those around them to suffer just so they can go after their dream? Are they making those around them better or worse?
Read MoreIf you have read many of my articles you know that I promote a technique I call set the minimum. The idea is that you set a ridiculously easy goal but commit to doing it daily.
This gets you started on the path of building a new habit. It is so small and easy that you actually stick to it. After doing it over and over it starts to become an ingrained habit and then you can add more to it once it is automatic and you aren’t using willpower any longer.
Read MoreWhen we start to explore systems thinking we start to see the world differently. We don’t see events on the news in the same way. We don’t see relationships in the same light. We don’t see life with the same perspective.
The biggest change is to start to see the underlying systems for everything. We start to focus more on patterns than anomalies. We observe a recurring pattern where others see a brand new thing.
Read MoreHave you ever been in an older arcade and seen the Whack-a-mole game? You have a big rubber hammer and the goal is to hit (whack) these little moles that pop out of holes. The more you can hit the more points you gain.
It is a fun game but it is amazing how many times I have heard managers talk about whack-a-mole in the work environment.
Read MoreWhen I was younger I found myself ebbing and flowing through being happy, being complacent, and being unhappy.
It seemed like I would work hard and it would make me happy and I would accomplish things that were important. Then I would gain an entitlement mindset and feel that I shouldn’t have to work so hard to be successful.
Read MoreThe concept of setting the minimum is a systems thinking strategy for doing something over and over to form a habit. It involves setting a very small daily amount to do and then doing it over and over again.
The idea is that if we max out all the time and do something uncomfortable, we won’t continue to do it long enough to form a habit. So we find a very small piece of that max-out amount and do that over and over again.
Read MoreWhat do you feel is important in your life to be successful? If you immediately jump to cliché thoughts of billions of dollars and traveling the world, I would caution you to dig deeper, a lot deeper.
For the most part, people that I have heard use these extreme levels of success as their goals tend to be so far away from pursing any of it that it almost feels like a lie.
Read MoreThe ability to communicate is a very important skill that too many of us ignore. This doesn’t necessarily mean the ability to give a formal speech without any grammar errors.
It means being able to take a thought in our head and convey that message to others. It could be in a negotiation, during a sales pitch, or even pouring out your heart for the one you love.
Read MoreWe all have to start where we are. We assume successful people started with enormous advantage but often as we learn about successful individuals we learn that they had some advantages in life but their success was more related to their constant desire to improve.
I’m currently reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I am fascinated to hear stories through his words and see that he spent years just working to make something of himself.
Read MoreMany of my articles focus on making very small changes over a long period of time to be successful. We can examine the systems and habits in our lives and design them according to our goals and dreams.
But sometimes change can’t wait. It has to happen right away. It could be that we are headed in the wrong path and need to drastically improve in order to avoid danger.
Read MoreWhen I was younger, I naively felt that what mattered was the destination not the journey. I thought sacrifice and discomfort were part of the journey and success and happiness were part of the destination.
Therefore, I worked hard but found myself miserable most of the time. So as I started to go through my high school and college years I started to shift my perspective.
Read MoreWhen we talk about influential people throughout history I am always surprised at how the narrative around these people seems to solidify over time. It seems like everyone would agree that Hitler is bad and Gandhi was good.
I hate these overly simplistic judgments. We all seem to want these clear, easy-to-understand characteristics of people. But people are complex and it isn’t that simple.
Read MoreI am always surprised when executives make the incorrect assumption that systems and processes are only relevant during execution, not in strategic planning.
They envision high level thinking and being so far outside the box that they can come up with unique ideas that disrupt their industry. They believe that the further away they get from the day-to-day operations the better equipped they will be to come up with a solution that gets away from the way it has always been done.
Read MoreWe 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
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