I believe freedom can be found in systems. Yes, systems create freedom.
I know! I used to be all about spur of the moment, and free spirit, and go with the flow…in my mind I pictured myself as a gypsy fairy wild woman. But in reality I was always putting out fires (not literally–okay, once literally, but it was small, another story) and could never actually DO anything free-spirited, because, well things would keep coming up–or it seemed hard.
I believe I could/can go with the flow because my life was always set on reactive mode! I didn’t have a plan/s so nothing I did was ever pro-active (I don’t know why, but I really hate that word, I may have mentioned this in another post and will, more than likely, mention it again).
It was a survival mechanism.
It was a survival mechanism–now I want a soulful strategy mechanism
Some systems I have down–okay, two systems, possibly three, maybe four:
- I pick out my clothes the night before (no decisions in the morning–have you noticed how everything takes longer in the morning?
- I wake up and make my bed (made bed equals clean bedroom, yes?)
- And I make sure to sit with a cup of coffee, to let my thoughts be my thoughts
- As soon as I get in my car in the morning I start saying my affirmations–it’s automatic
- I guess I have one more, dishes get done as soon as we’re done eating (no dirty dishes guilting you equals happy when guests show up unannounced)
But I need more–waaaaaayyyyy more. And how about some for cool things and not just cleaning, sheesh!
Plus those systems are more like habits.
That’s it though, right? Habits, so if I can make something small a habit, why can’t I make something large (and seemingly hard) and “meaningful” a habit as well? Don’t get me wrong, One Good Cup and affirmations are super-dooper meaningful, but I need more meaningful habits.
Take what I’m doing right this very moment…writing this blog post. I started this post aeons ago, I love writing blog posts, or, do I love having written blog posts? If it’s going well, I love the act and frankly I usually learn as I write, because the things I choose to write about are things I either needed to learn in the past, or am in the process of learning now.
When I look up “systemizing your life” I get lots of articles on automating your life and delegating your life (okay, you don’t actually delegate your life, you delegate the tasks you dislike in your life). This is not what I’m looking for…I did find something on Kaizen, the Japanese way of continuous improvement–and following a daily action plan–that’s a little closer. And then I found Dan Ryu, he wrote an article for Medium, here’s a few of his quotes:
“It’s not how well you can do something ONCE. It’s how well you can do it over a sustained period of time.” Dan Ryu
Ah, now we’re on to something
“However, for most of us, ‘knowing’ what to do is not the problem. What ends up stopping us is the way our life is constructed.” Dan Ryu
Oy! Yes! This.
“When we want success, we focus on goals. When we want to be a successful person, we focus on habits.” Dan Ryu
Yikes. That’s it.
His post is aimed toward business, but it can just as easily be used for life. It’s a great article, I’ll link at the end of this post–don’t want you to get derailed and lose your focus of reading my post.
I’m thinking a lot about that last quote, I don’t know that I’ve ever differentiated between “success” and BEING a successful person–that entails so much more. A successful person is well-rounded and thinking of others and not just their first million in the bank–it is a whole life type of success, and I think thinking about being a successful person could motivate me to focus on the habits that I have, well, NOT been focusing on.Ha!
And the thing I’m most excited about (from his article) and yet seems the most daunting is creating a Mastermind group–I feel this would be the thing to keep me focused, or at the very least, to make me quickly get the things accomplished that I want to accomplish the night before the Mastermind was scheduled to meet. That’s how I (no longer want to) roll. Plus, I love listening to other people and their dreams.
The challenge seems to be gathering a group of like-minded folks. I’ve thought about a Facebook group, I’ve thought about a real group, I do a lot of thinking about my circle of friends and acquaintances–would they be interested?
So this is where I’m at now–deciding to be a successful person and on my way to creating a mastermind group.
Have you ever been a part of a Mastermind? How was it?
https://medium.com/@danryu/how-to-10x-your-success-systemize-your-life-8df75045ee5f
Practically Magic 