When I am working through a new process at work, I look for three factors before I implement it with staff. I want to make sure these three elements are there or I know that it will likely fail as we try to build this new system.
We can use the same three elements in our personal system and habit development. They can clue you in to the power of a particular system. They can also clue you in to a system that might have problems.
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As we move through our life there are many phenomenon that we can’t explain. We don’t understand why we didn’t get that promotion, or we can’t figure out why our relationship went sour.
We can’t understand why so we assume it must be some magical reason. We say it is luck. Or we say it is fate. We justify it by saying we skipped some random good deed so this must be Karma paying us back.
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Habit rules us all. We go through life developing certain patterned behaviors. Sometimes we are conscious of these and sometimes we have no awareness of them. Sometimes they are positive habits and sometimes they hold us back.
If you have a habit of smoking cigarettes you know about your habit. But if you have a habit of feeling entitled too quickly at a job, do you know you have this habit? What about if you use too many filler words when speaking to others?
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Whenever we set out to change the systems and habits in our lives, we will find that consistency is important. We have to keep doing certain things. We can’t just do something once and expect a payoff.
The focus of the systems and habits approach to improvement is to change your recurring thoughts and actions over time. It isn’t to suddenly think differently. It isn't to change by tomorrow. It is to tweak aspects of our routines so that we can make them better in the future.
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We all need to have hope that things can be better. We have to have some sense of optimism over the future. Without hope, everything becomes a struggle but with hope that struggle becomes manageable.
I have been on both sides of this. I have felt hopeless. This translated into being lazy and blaming others for my own disappointments in life. I have been hopeful. This tends to be when I fought through adversity. During these periods I didn’t let things get me down or stop me from making progress.
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When I was in high school, I worked for a retail shoe store. I would talk to customers and help them determine the best shoes to buy.
The corporate office gave us sales goals each month. The goals were set from historical performance. Each month we would review the upcoming goals to make sure everyone knew what was expected.
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Most people that I know want it all. They want success. They want happiness. They want to be envied, loved, and cherished. They want to achieve all sorts of goals.
Some people take this desire and turn it into motivation. They start working towards their goals.
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Most people feel that resilience and persistence are innate characteristics. They say we are either born that way, or we aren’t.
But this is misleading. I know because I have found myself on either end of the spectrum at various points in my life.
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Our behaviors follow patterns. We react in similar ways when confronted with similar stimuli. In certain environments we act by doing the same thing we have always done.
We often feel we have control over these types of autopilot thoughts and behavior. But time and time again we react and think about what’s happening much less than we realize.
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This past Saturday I watched a great college football game. The University of Minnesota played Penn State. Both teams came into the matchup undefeated. Both teams needed the win to keep their momentum. Both teams wanted to win to help their odds of getting into the College Football Playoff.
From the start, the University of Minnesota came out playing tough. They were the underdog but played with a ferociousness that is often reserved for the top programs. They ultimately won the game and set off a party in Minnesota for accomplishing such a great feat.
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Last month I was working with a team that was having trouble hitting the goals that we set. They were struggling but seemed convinced that the current way of doing things was the best way.
They argued that the small changes we wanted to make weren’t going to have any impact. They felt they were too small. They wanted something major, not some small daily change.
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I put a lot of value in standards. In my personal life I am always looking at what the standard thought or action is in any given situation. In my work life, I help define the standards for each role in the business. This gives clarity around expectations and accountability.
Standards are important yet most people find this topic boring and mundane. Who wants to look at the standard process or routine when they can dream about what they might do once they succeed?
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A lot of people I know procrastinate when it comes to important things they need to do. They wait. They think about it. They analyze. They worry.
While research and analysis is important it is more important that we start moving. We can’t sit back and wait forever. We can’t tell ourselves that we are waiting for the perfect time because there is no such thing as the perfect time.
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When we start to improve and chase our dreams, it is easy to get caught up daydreaming about rewards. It is more fun to think about success than thinking of the work required. It is a natural motivator to convince us to do something difficult to change for the better.
But for most people this doesn’t translate into lasting motivation. Instead it creates a mindset of daydreaming. Then we start to want the rewards more and more but aren’t willing to do what is necessary to reach our goal.
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There are patterns in each of our lives that we often ignore but can clue us into great insight into how to improve. We can search for recurring themes in our life. Then we trace the path back to our thoughts or actions that created the environment for those themes.
Even though it is often difficult to see this in our self, we can usually spot it in others. We see why those around us struggle. We know what they should do; they need to listen to us. For some reason, we can see what they miss due to bias and flawed thinking.
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When it comes to motivational speakers I have noticed a theme. They all seem to present information to motivate listeners to do great things. If you aren’t changing the world, then you are failing, they argue.
They say that everyone is here for greatness. We all have capability to do amazing things in life. We can all live in wealth and glory, we just have to tackle life.
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There is an old saying that says, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” The saying presents the idea that how we work and act in our lives are more cohesive than most people realize.
Most people assume we can work hard when it is something we care about. We can work less on things we don’t like but have to do. We can ignore areas we don’t want to do.
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The other day I was watching TV when a familiar scene appeared. The character was trying to decide what to do. There were two imaginary little characters on each shoulder.
On one shoulder was a miniature devil. The little devil was trying to tell them to do what feels right in the moment. On the other shoulder, an angel. The angel was trying to convince the character to do the right thing.
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One of the benefits of the systems and habits approach to improvement is that we start to create structures in our life that help us succeed. We create an environment where we can flourish.
This means that we don’t rely on self-control all the time. Instead of buying our favorite snack food and hoping we resist the temptation of eating it, we simply avoid purchasing that particular snack. Instead of putting ourselves in situations where constantly have to use willpower to stay on track we use habit to keep us on track and willpower to build habit.
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When I was in college I was always looking for the easy way through life. I would avoid taking classes that were too challenging, I would work a minimal number of hours at my retail job, and I avoided anything that resembled hard work.
I felt that I could simply think my way through life and avoid having to do the hard work everyone else had to do.
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