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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.
The world needs balance. Our lives need to have balance. Without balance things get chaotic and unhealthy.
The earth is full of balancing aspects to keep everything moving. Our body is constantly working to remain in a balanced state.
Read MoreWhen we are motivated, we often identify aspect of our life that we want to change. Often, this takes the form of some major point of misery or strong desire that convinces us to crave something more.
This desire rises and takes hold of our thoughts. We can’t shake it. We need this new change, and we must find a way to acquire it.
Read MoreEveryone gets to a point where they need to slow down and get a start fresh. It could be after a big project gets completed at work. It could be after recovering from an illness. It could be after a big move into a new house. It could be after the holidays, once summer start, or after getting the spring cleaning completed.
During these times, there is energy. It could be positive energy with excitement, calming energy after making it through something, or negative energy after a major loss.
Read MoreIf you use the systems and habits approach to improve, you will build up great habits. You will start to achieve your goals and experience success.
Everyone who follows this approach will eventually hit an ultimate crossroad. This ultimate crossroad will be difficult and confusing.
Read MoreWe all know the feeling of taking on too much. It could be at work. It could be at home. We run the kids to their appointments, remember to pay the bills, cut the grass, and still need to remember to take care of ourselves.
It often feels as though we sprint all day just to get to bed before midnight. We run ragged and then hit the weekend hoping to squeeze in some fun and relaxation. Instead of fun, we end up working all weekend to get caught up for the moment.
Read MoreResulting is the term that is used by poker players to describe when they use the outcome of the hand to judge their decision. If they win, they assume they made a good choice. If they lose, they assume they made a bad choice.
But poker, just as in life, contains risk. This means there are factors that are unpredictable. There are elements that are beyond our control and beyond our ability to know ahead of time.
Read MoreBuilding new systems and habits to replace old ones is challenging. There are many reasons why this occurs.
One reason is based on the Familiarity Heuristic. This is a bias towards the familiar. When we judge something, if it is familiar, we rank it higher than if it is novel.
Read MoreIn life we all have choices. The most obvious choices are the major life choices we make as we age. But there are many subtle choices that we make that we may not notice.
Often, we avoid making a deliberate choice and accept the default option. Because we find it difficult to choose, we take whatever is left.
Read MoreI emphasize in my articles and books the limitations of using willpower. Many studies have explored willpower and conclude that it is a finite resource.
As we use willpower, it depletes. If we have a stressful day of work and use willpower to get through it without screaming at someone, then we won’t have as much willpower to avoid the fast-food lane on the drive home.
Read MoreWhenever we evaluate a system, we are always curious about the various leverage points. These are the aspects of the system that hold great power.
We can apply a relatively small amount of force to this leverage point, and it produces an output much greater than our efforts. Just as we use a lever to gain power, we can use these points in the system to gain power over the system.
Read MoreOne thing that I love about the systems and habits approach to improvement is the idea that you can start small. In fact, you can start microscopic. It doesn’t have to be some major overhaul.
This makes it easier to get started. We can come up with an idea and implement it right away. We can start small, so we don’t need willpower or motivation to get it going.
Read MoreIf you want to improve, you must learn how to take ownership. It sounds easy. It seems like we already take ownership of our lives.
But if we look closely, we see that this isn’t the case. Instead, we often find someone else to blame. We find a scapegoat.
Read MorePeople value immediate rewards over future rewards. We want instant gratification, not a future benefit.
This makes it difficult to make consistent, positive choices. We want to see the rewards right away and will even take less now just to make sure we get it without delay.
Read MoreWhen it comes to designing systems and habits to be successful, most people think you need to think outside the box. Remove all limitations and then brainstorm ideas until you find the most innovated one.
This approach is common but flawed. Thinking outside the box sounds great until we realize we could do anything. Being able to do anything is too complex, too broad, and too overwhelming.
Read MoreWhen people set goals to help them improve, they run into many problems. Goals are great to measure performance against expected outcomes. But goals are horrible for actual improvement.
Goals don’t address the steps you need to take. They don’t address the process. They focus solely on what the expected outcome is and why it is a good guess.
Read MoreIn my book, You Can’t Surf from the Shore, I outline the flaws in my early decision-making. Instead of being active in deciding what I wanted in life, I defaulted to whatever was easy and obvious.
I went to college because it was easier to go to college than fight my parents about my desire for another path. I worked the retail job I kept after college because I didn’t want to spend the time applying to jobs. Each choice felt less like a choice and more like I had to do it.
Read MoreAn object in motion wants to stay in motion and an object at rest wants to stay at rest. While we have all heard this in physics class, the reality is that it applies beyond the science lab.
When we want to change human behavior, we run into the same principle. I used to think that we all were pulled towards inaction. We would rather choose to sit and relax instead of going to work out.
Read MoreWhen it comes to our hopes and desires in life, I’ve noticed that there is a shift as I make my way through life. What started as ambitious dreams have turned into daily realizations of reality.
Part of this is the normal aging process. Research has shown that happiness and life satisfaction follow a curve. They are high in our twenties but slowly decrease. They dip until around age 45 (in the U.S.) and then start rising again.
Read MoreMany people want more happiness and success in their life. They want to achieve. They want the rewards. They want to have the confidence that comes with obtaining their goals and dreams.
When I was younger, I craved success. I said that I would do anything to have more success and more money.
Read MoreWhen I was overseeing the operations of a growing company, we were always trying to find ways to innovate and improve the team. We wanted to be able to scale the operations and to do that we knew that we needed to find better ways to work.
It sounds easy but is very difficult. The challenge is often to avoid change for the sake of change and to find true improvements. Everyone has ideas for changing something on the team. But rarely did that idea translate into an increase in production.
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