Relying On Systems

My life and progress transformed when I made this simple switch: To stop focusing on habits and start building new systems.

Don’t get me wrong, habits are incredibly important because they are the consistent actions that most influence your results. But when you place your time and attention on locking in a new habit, you’re fueling your growth from a source that runs out. To be consistent with a habit every day means you need to find the motivation and will to take action, and it can taxing to demand that of yourself day in and day out.

However, when you invest in building a new system, you make the consistent action more doable on a daily basis because you’ve created efficiencies. You design your environment in such a way that you’ve set yourself up to succeed sustainably. It’s the gift that keeps on giving because the effort that you put into building the system works for you every time thereafter.

For example, I have a daily system to plan the when, what, and where of my workout for the next day. This commitment then gets in my schedule, which supports me in doing it consistently. Then every evening I have a system for reviewing my performance and understanding the factors that caused me to not workout at the times I intended to. As you can imagine, this is a powerful force that drives me toward achieving my fitness goals.

But as it goes with systems, they're only as strong as the weakest point. Let’s say that I often fail to make a schedule for the day. That compromises my ability to follow through on my workout, no matter how thoughtful I am about the details of it, because I don’t have a plan to integrate personal and work responsibilities alongside my self-care. It’s much more likely to be deprioritized, and for excuses to be made, when you’re trying to figure it all out in real-time. When we build a system we become dependent on it, and if it starts to become unreliable or ineffective, our results suffer with it.

That’s why the output of a system should always be evaluated. When you can see the consistency, quality, and results a system produces, you can be aware of when behaviors are starting to fade off. And you can more quickly recognize the bottleneck, giving you an opportunity to make positive adjustments so that the system flows smoother. 

I call my life-operating system the Super Habits System and if you want to install it in your life for yourself, and start living at the higher standard you know you’re capable of, you can check it out here.