How To Leverage Systems That Help You Achieve More

In a previous post, we emphasized the role of goal setting in trying to stay resolute on resolutions. We also explained the importance of developing tiny daily habits, a complementary concept to goal setting that is even more effective as put by Doctor BJ Fogg, Stanford University behavior professor and author of the book called “Tiny Habits: the small changes that change everything”. He asserts that daily tiny habits can add up to constitute a greater goal. Picking a daily habit can be the initial step towards developing a system of change that can become efficient and reliable over time. James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits”, is famously quoted for “you do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems”.

Simply put, if you want to rise to the level of your goals you need to raise your systems higher than the level of your goals. Consistency in achieving goals depends on the level of habits you adopt that develop into a system of change that help you overcome a lack of motivation and willpower. This concept of thinking and behaving is applied to small things like drinking a cup of water the first thing in the morning to adopting habits of accomplishing complex goals in business.

The backbone idea of leveraging systems is the fact that real change can never be instantaneous. Change is the result of several small and continuous decisions and jobs carried out in a persistent way over time. According to Doctor Fogg, behavior is the result of motivation, ability, and prompts taken at the same time. In other words, you need to desire the thing or goal you want to accomplish, be capable of doing it, and simply put it in cue for execution with a set date after an event certain to happen. Motivation builds up by setting rewards. Ability increases when you create time to behavior, have enough money, many people around you can help you, increase your skills, acquire tools to help you do the job, and make behavior tiny. Prompts can be anything that reminds you to start a new behavior.

“Action Prompts are already embedded in your life so seamlessly and naturally that you don’t have to think about them.” — BJ Fogg

In the same way, Fogg puts it, you can stop unwanted and bad habits by taking them off the cue or simply replacing them with another behavior. “You can disrupt a behavior you don’t want by removing the prompt. This isn’t always easy, but removing the prompt is your best first move to stop a behavior from happening.” — BJ Fogg