Systems are great but they are not static. Just as our lives and businesses change with the prevailing winds of the environment, so must our systems. My life has gone through some pretty major changes over the past year and I didn’t put the time in adjust my systems. As a result, a lot of the habits that I’ve worked very hard to build over the past few years came crashing down around me in this last quarter.
For those of you who follow at home, I am a fan of the Kolbe personality assessment. My Kolbe “score” shows that I am very bad at follow through (2 out of 10) and very good at trying new things (8 out of 10).
In some ways, it is hard for a 2 Follow Through to stick to a system. I think Kolbe would argue that it is antithetical to my nature. On the other hand, my nature also has me going to bed every evening, waking up in the morning (so far, so good), brushing my teeth nightly, etc. If the habit is ingrained, either biologically or neurologically, I do it without thinking.
Habit Stacking
This past few years have been about ingraining rituals. Writing has probably been my biggest win. But, I have other great rituals too, such as my shutdown ritual that I wrote about earlier this year. Thanks to James Clear’s Atomic Habits, I have structured my life in a way that these habits are easy. Writing, for example, is the first thing I do when I walk into my office in the morning. As a result, it gets done, even when it is hard and uncomfortable. Today, for instance, is painful. I feel like I have to force words onto the page, but I’m doing it, because that is what I do. Yesterday, on the other hand, I had to force myself to stop after 70 minutes because other things were needing my attention.
Clear cites the research which shows that it is easier to anchor new habits to existing habits. He calls this Habit Stacking – a method built off of Stanford Professor, BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits work. Habit Stacking worked fantastically for me when my life had a consistent structure to it.
Change topples Habit Stacks
Recently, in Q4 of 2022, my life was going through some pretty significant changes. As a result, many of my routines shifted. My Habit Stacks lost their foundations and toppled.
I’ve officially not had a day to day “job” to do at my company for nearly a year. Additionally, I winded down a new partnership this December. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to shift my focus to be one centered on helping my fellow entrepreneurs find alignment with themselves, their companies and their marketplace.
As a result of all of this, my daily rituals were going through some pretty wild changes. What was working for me a year ago failed pretty spectacularly as this year progressed. Things got particularly rough over the past two months when the holidays came into the picture.
All of this serves as a reminder to me that systems need attention. Life is complicated and inconsistent. As a result, we all need the mental, temporal, and even physical space to adjust our systems to be in alignment with ourselves, our businesses, our families, and the rest of the universe.
Thanks to the USGS for making some of their photos available on Unsplash, like this one of a river delta.