Systems

NOTE: This is an excerpt from the Saturday 7 newsletter

I've been thinking a lot about "systems."

We have systems for everything. What we do after we wake up (i.e. eat, brush teeth, check your phone, email, ect.) is a system. We have systems for how we work and how we spend/invest our money; systems for how we eat and workout; and even systems for how we engage with others and what leisure activities we participate in. Once we have systems in place, it feels like we are in control, like the trains are set on definite tracks that run on a predictable schedule to an exact location.

Some systems are "set it and forget it." Once in place, they can run a lifetime and reap tremendous rewards. For example, there is a fairly proven system that if you automatically invest 20% of your income into strategic assets, you'll likely end up wealthy. Or if you have the system of eating a good diet, working out, and getting 8 hours of sleep, you run a system that generates health and vitality. 

But some systems need to get updated. If a certain system has been in place for awhile, but isn't getting you to the location you want, then you have to restructure the train tracks. And some tracks that run up a mountain have to derail. They served their purpose getting you from the bottom of the mountain to the middle, but you have to get on new tracks in order to keep going higher.

One thing I've noticed with my yearly challenges is that they force me to restructure my systems. It's uncomfortable. It feels like the trains get derailed, direction gets losts, and I lose control. It's not until I run these new systems for a few months, that I feel like I regain a semblance of control. But I realized this chaos is the necessary ingredient to growth.

Growth is the process of putting new systems in place, running them, outgrowing them, and replacing them. It's a process of setting down new tracks at each stop up the mountain. For example, a startup company runs one set of systems, a multimillion dollar company runs a different set of systems, and a billion-dollar enterprise another. But if a startup doesn't upgrade its systems when it's time, it will die. Because in business if you aren't growing, you are dying. 

The last few weeks I've been reengineering my systems to prepare for my 2021 Challenge. And it has brought along with it the same feelings of chaos, loss of control, and falling behind. I'm trying to keep all my trains on the tracks and running on schedule, while restructuring and building a few new routes. As much as this construction process is uncomfortable, I realize that if I don't update my systems I'll keep getting what I have. Stuck on the level of the mountain I'm currently on. And while I am grateful and blessed for all I have, there is still a whole lot I want to do.

So during times of chaos I like to remind myself that in the next decade I have the choice of having 10 years of progress, or 1 year repeated 10 times. The cost of growth, progress, and personal improvements is putting new systems in place even though it's never comfortable.

The good news is, the tracks smooth out pretty quickly, and new destinations are exciting.