Happy Sunday Everyone:
I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend!
I have a handful of books that go on the “read forever” list. They hit me at different times depending on where I am in my life. Sometimes personally, sometimes professional, many times, both. The concept of how you do anything is how you do everything is finally starting to creep in. I’ve said it 100 times, but I’m feeling it more now than ever. So that book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. The divisional book club president (me) has selected it as our 3rd book choice of the year. I believe I’m in my 4th round of it, but it’s never felt more useful than today. It’s a book I’ve asked my boys to read, it’s a book everyone should read. Its sold 20 mill copies….so I’m not alone in this. It’s fascinating, clarifying, and useful to anyone/everyone.
Our division just came off of a half time goal planning exercise for the 2nd of the year. The exercise wasn’t mandatory, but the turnout was solid. The word “assume”usually has the negative example of its usage “you know what happens when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME”. Although this may be true, I’m in the camp of making the assumption that most people seek some form of help, guidance, desire for betterment. So instead of assuming nobody wants to do these exercises, we assume people do, and if some people aren’t interested, that’s okay too. The timing of goal planning and reading this book for our book club was in fact an accident, but the timing couldn’t haven’t been better. The single statement that hits mean between the eyes is “you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems”. It leaves me asking the question of “what is my system for everything I do in life”. What is my system for my morning routine, for cleaning the kitchen, for exercising, for business planning, for dealing with my finances, for planning each meeting, for reviewing my priorities, for reviewing my day ahead of my day beginning.
James Clear uses an example written by Scott Adams-it says, “goals are about the results you want to achieve, systems are about the process that lead to those results”. Thinking about the system for everything I listed above lightens my load. Its universal. I could be taking James Clear’s message and have him scratching his head but for me it’s an on-the-fly road map to get things done that you know will help toward a goal. I can get paralyzed when thinking about a goal because I know what I want but I don’t always know how to get there. This creates procrastination which leads to delayed misery and usually bad habits in between to help with the procrastination. I get way more clarity when I simply ask, “what does the system look like for me create what I want”. This seems embarrassingly simple but having a system for everything will always put me on the better path toward reaching my goals. It’s the antithesis of “winging it”, its being intentional about being better.
You might consider what your systems are for everything you do.