I just finished the book Irresistible by Adam Alter – The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.  There was one part of that book that talked about Systems versus goals in terms of recovery from any type of addiction.  Scott Adams, the author of the comic strip Dilbert, wrote about this in a book of his which was cited in Alter’s book.  It talks about rather than goals setting up systems that are repeatable.

For instance, at my retail job, we have handheld devices for entering information such as temperatures or marking down items and an associated printer that goes with it.  Both are handheld and both use batteries.  For months I have tried to implement a system whereby we have fresh batteries ready to use for each of these devices.  I want this because it’s literally a quarter of a mile walk to the back of the store to get fresh batteries.  Yet it has not caught on.  We could establish a goal of having a fresh handheld battery and printer battery every 3 days.  Instead, we should establish a system of taking the dead batteries to the charger and bringing back the charged batteries on a regular basis, possibly making this a part of the closers (those who close the deli/bakery) role. 

Or, at home, creating systems for your daily chores.  For instance, I work Wednesday to Sunday.  I have set up a system for my laundry.  On Friday morning I wash the last 2 days’ worth of clothes, so I have them for the Saturday and Sunday shifts.  On Monday morning, the first thing I do is put a load of laundry in the washer even before I turn on the coffee maker.  I didn’t set a goal of having laundry done I just implemented a system that now is a habit.

Those are easy examples. I journal and meditate every day.  I have a system in place to do this.  It started in May 2014 when I was laid off my job. I turned to this book “Live Your Truth” by Kamal Ravikant.  In it he created systems for recovery.  I utilized this guidebook and started journaling and meditating.  I didn’t set a goal of journaling and meditating for 6 years, I just implemented a system that is truly now a habit for me.  On a side note, I am rereading this and getting more great information from it.

Years ago, I was tired of setting goals for my life at the beginning of the year and not achieving them.  I was doing well financially but still was not achieving my goals.  I hired a life coach because what I was doing was not working.  She was the first to suggest to me to journal about what we were working on that week.  That is the precursor to 2014 but it truly helped and to be honest she helped me see that I am a life coach.  And she helped me curate that habit of journaling daily.

Now, as I embark on that path, I don’t set goals for how many co-creators I can attract to my coaching practice.  I now know that I am setting up systems for creating a business that will thrive.  It’s all about creating simple things that will help me thrive as a holistic life coach and podcaster.  I am creating content that is not only helpful to you my reader but honestly is helpful to me the writer.  By creating a system around content creation, I achieve goals organically rather than forcing them.  Life is about being in that canoe going downstream without oars.

In summary, if you have something you want to accomplish, create a simple system to just start that accomplishment. Create mini milestones within it and soon it will be habit forming and will become second nature to you.

Remember, EVERY Thought Matters.