Goals & Systems

James Clear has written several books on habbits, I took my learning from his lessons on " MasterClass " and I can relate to his Iceberg vision that Habits are the system to support the goal.

1) This applies to your personal goals.

As James explains, if you make small changes and get a repetitive system in place, you can reach your goal. Such as losing weight by doing small exercises when you CAN do them. Don't shoot for the stars from day one.

System as a collection of daily habits; these are not defined via the goal. They're the system that define the goal.

2) Though this relate to business just as much.

Think about this: often we don't know we're doing something wrong until we have an alternative to test the habit. Take the example of how you slowly learned to improve a skill and you can't even think about going back to your old way of doing.

The system and the habits is HOW you work, the culture and interaction between teams. IT systems you are using and time you spend on tasks that should maybe be automated.

In business, a system is often an actual system (or 'defined processes') and as you get bigger, this is often seen as "the" way of working and not often reviewed. And why would you, if you grow the system got you to where you are so it is justified if you think it shouldn't be changed if you want to achieve the next growth level.

3) Don't change the goal, change the system and the goal will come.

Imagine reviewing your business processes and your internal systems only when you notice a stagnation in growth or when you start to lose time, money or clients. This would too late to boost the growth you prefer to see.

Same goes for objectives you wish to achieve, if you set a goal and then try to build your system to achieve this goal, you'd have to do this all over again when your goal changes (growing your business to 1 million revenue requires a different company structure than growing to 10 million)

So my tip? Always look to improve, which might sound exhausting but it's actually amazing to do. You'll see how your company is in constant change with opportunities to take at any given moment.

4) Stay critical to what you do and how you do it.

Often, companies start to look for a new solution because there is a today's' need to solve. Not often is searched for the best solution to solve tomorrow's problems.

As a business owner - or via a dedicated employee - it will be beneficial to look for adjustments in the system that will bring the goal closer and therefore make it possible to grow faster or further than you could have imagined.

Make changes

Review your habits

Grow your business!