The One Habit that Changed My Life: Set Systems rather than Goals

The One Habit that Changed My Life 

Set Systems rather than Goals

I have spent the past few years trying out new habits and creating different routines to optimize productivity. I want to share the single most important habit, I've grown to understand, embrace and put into practice over the past few months that has completely shifted the way I view habits altogether. That is creating a system that works for me instead of comparing myself to others and setting hard goals.

"You don't rise to the level of your goals you fall to the level of your systems"

In today's article, I'll explain the difference between a goal and a system. How I created my own system and how you can create your very own!

What is the difference between a goal and a system?

As explained in atomic habits, a goal is a result you want to achieve. A system is a process that leads to those results. It's like the saying life isn't about the destination. It's about the journey.

Goals are hyper-focus on the destination while systems are embracing the journey. The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game true long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It's not about any single accomplishment. It's about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress. For example, if your space is a mess, you know, I'm constantly cleaning my room here. You'd set it as a goal to clean it and once you accomplish that goal the result you get is a clean room. Temporarily, until it's messy again because your habits of not putting things back to where they belong haven't changed. The outcome or output will always be the same because the system or input didn't change. So if we're able to fix the input the output will fix themselves. Of course, it's still important to have a general idea of where we're going and where we're headed but the takeaway is that it's less about continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. Falling into the trap of "after I accomplished X-Y-Z, I will be happy" and more about trusting ourselves and the process and our systems.

As we're constantly fluctuating and changing, it's inevitable that our habits, routines and lifestyles will fluctuate and change as well. While some work best with a very vigorously structured routine that repeats itself daily. I found that I work best when I have a repertoire of positive self-care habits that I can choose from and fall back on daily. As you guys saw earlier, the one thing I never fail to do every morning is to make my bed then I brush my teeth and wash my face. If I need to implement the two-minute rule like cleaning out my humidifier, I will, sometimes, it's writing down three things. I'm grateful for the moment, I wake up. Other days, it’s making time for meditation. Reading a book and/or enjoying a nice cup of anything while sitting in stillness taking in the outside world. Some days, it may be doing all the things and checking all the boxes. Other days, it may be checking off one or two of the most impactful items. Sometimes, what you don't do is just as important as what you do. As someone who's constantly doing and thinking many things at once. I can always rely on mindfully doing nothing, meditating, and going for a walk to refresh and reinvigorate my physical, mental, and spiritual state. If habits are a memory of steps that solved a problem in the past, what problems doing me solving? Over the years, I found myself getting fixated over building good habits for the sake of building good habits. To the point where I don't even remember why I'm building them in the first place is it to be more productive, so that I can squeeze in as much work in the day as I humanly can be skipping meals, sleeping late, and neglecting my health or is it so that I can work smarter when I need to, so that I can make time to fully unplug and recharge when the time comes. Now that we know the importance of systems. Let's talk about how to build them?

The first and most important step is to identify what is essential. With clarity of purpose, it's easy to say no to non-essentials so that we can say yes to the essential. This is quoting "Essentialism" the book it is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential. Having pushed myself as hard as I did the past few years prioritizing work and growth, I started feeling the consequences throughout 2019 working through weekends, having zero social life, staying up past 2 am, and not eating proper meals. This all started to change a few months ago when I decided my physical, mental, and spiritual health along with my sanity and relationships were a lot more important than anything. I could never humanly build on my own. So while work will continue to be an important aspect of my life, it will no longer be the only aspect.

This year, I'm making an active effort to take better care of myself and all those around me while nourishing my mind, body, and soul intellectually, creatively, and spiritually so that I can strive forward gracefully on this beautiful marathon reaping blessed with. Embracing the system rather than focusing on the destination.  The first pillar I've been chipping away at: is to make time for proper meals with more nourishing whole foods and veggies in my diet. I feel so much lighter and energized throughout the day feeling a hundred per cent physically also helps with feeling a hundred per cent mentally. It's worth looking into the gut-brain access at all. For lunch, on this fine Sunday, I’m making Daily Harvest's broccoli cheese bowl and its cheese with a Z because the cheese is made with sweet potato, bell pepper, and nutritional yeast How neat is that? The bowls are super easy to hack as well. You can enjoy it on its own or add avocado and your choice of protein. I add tofu and some extra carbs. This tasted like broccoli cheddar soup, but make it healthy. I can't tell you guys how many times these Daily Harvest cups have saved me these past few months super convenient super quick with organic quality ingredients. This may sound a little silly but having eaten such wholesome, whole fruits, and veggies from Daily Harvest encouraged me to start cooking a lot more because I was reintroduced to how awesome these good foods taste and how awesome it makes my body feel. I've been cooking a lot more and I've been baking a lot more. Making time to cook and making time to bake I think that's just the foundation of all of this just making time for what's essential and making time for what's important, which is my health. If you're interested in trying out Daily Harvest for yourself.

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done. It's about how to get the right things done.

It doesn't mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential. Going back to our repertoire of positive and self-care habits I would also like to add here that you can have a repertoire of things that you know will make you feel good, positive, happy, uplifted, and inspired. For me, it's Spirited Away and spending time by myself in silence. Let's put on my face and head out. Another thing I've been prioritizing: making my way outside. Using the legs that I've been blessed with, to use, to walk around enjoy the city, enjoy where I'm living which are beautiful vibrant place with many things to explore all to say more exploring, more adventures, more frolicking, and less working along with taking better care of myself. I also want to do a better job at being present for my friends and taking better care of my friends as well in the capacity that they would want me to. After a nice meal and spending so much needed downtime alone, I headed out to Brooklyn on this beautiful sunny day to meet with a few of my friends to catch up and go over our 2020 resolutions and intentions and the things that we like to accomplish so that we can help keep each other accountable and help each other realize our dreamiest of dreams. One thing though is surprising and also not too surprising was that our visions for 2022 are all pretty similar with the desire to build community, work smarter not harder, and help each other continue using gifts for the greatest potential to help make the world just a little better and we're taking notes, my friend with her notepad I'm taking it with my phone not being a rude promise. So the first thing about creating a system: is to identify what is essential

The second thing I would say: is to choose to invest in yourself.

Here's another quote from Essentialism:

"When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless drip by drip, we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people's choices or even a function of our own past choices, in turn, we surrender our power to choose."

That is the path of the non-essential list. The essentialist doesn't just recognize the power of choice. The essentialist knows that when we surrender our right to choose, we give others not just the power but also the explicit permission to choose for us. So, choose for yourself and choose yourself are after all our best assets, whatever that contribution may be whatever world was hoping to create, we need to make an active decision to disengage so that we can engage with what's most essential and the last thing would be: spend time on what essential like actively carve out time, actively make time for what is most important.

I was going out to see and meet my friends and I think I didn't intend for making time to be like a little manifestation and manifesto words for my 2022 but I think it will be "making time". I'm going to make time for what is essential and I'm going to make time for what's most important. So, let's end this article with a quote from Atomic Habits:

"When you fall in love with the process rather than the product. You don't have to wait to permit yourself happy. You can be satisfied any time your system is running and a system can be successful in many different forms. Not just the one you first envision"

and with that thank you guys so much for joining me as always. I hope you found this article helpful.

 

Thank you,