#132 - Solo: Small Habits Big Results

How many times have you set a goal for yourself just to see nothing happened after a few months? The truth is that you cannot achieve your goals, you can only come up with a series of habits that once repeated often and long enough would lead to the achievement of your goals. 

 
In this episode Daniel will discuss system thinking as opposed to goal thinking so that our focus is shifted away from merely what we want and towards creating the systems that will lead to getting what we desire. 
 

Daniel's Social: 
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/Danmolgan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-molgan-41812352/
 
Pouya's Social:
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Episode Transcript:----more----
 

Music:
R Naught

Written By Kevin Austin Graham

Performed By Kevin Graham

Produced By Kevin Graham
 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

habits, goal, system, achieve, mandarin chinese, spend, pandemic, routines, social media, life, chinese, practice, income, morning, repeat, app, instagram, replacing, single, olympics

SPEAKERS

Dan

 

Dan  00:13

Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast, this solo edition. My name is Daniel Molgan. And welcome to this program where today we're going to talk about the issue of goal setting by means of creating a system. As opposed to just having our goals in our heads. You see, guys, traditional goal setting tells us that if you want to achieve a goal, just set a goal, I want to do this, for example, I want to lose weight, I want to run my own business, I want to run for the office, I want to get married, so on and so forth, you can you know, set all these goals for yourself. And that's, of course, all great. We have taught this to all of our basically graduates of our programs again and again. But the fact of the matter is that Unfortunately, most cases, having a goal alone does not allow you to actually achieve it if you just have that goal in your head and are not creating the systems required to make them happen. So we're actually going to talk about the issue of what it really means to put places basically, in your schedule, where you have certain activities where you are doing them again and again and again, to achieve your goals. So what is the difference between a goal and a system? A goal is what you want to achieve in your life. For example, I want to lose weight, I want to learn to speak Mandarin Chinese, I want to find the love of my life. These are sending them simple examples of having a goal for yourself. Now, what is a system? A system is what you should be doing regularly and repeatedly to achieve those goals. So think of for example, those three goals I gave you earlier, for example, you want to learn Mandarin Chinese, that's a goal. Now how can you actually create a system to make that happen, you may say, I will download this specific app with a reminder every morning, that will tell me to practice some Mandarin Chinese for about 15 minutes every morning, pray go to work. That's exactly one of my routines that I've done for him for many years now. And this is now a system. A system is a habit, and a process that you engage in regularly to achieve your goals. Unfortunately, most of us were not so good at creating those systems, we think about the goals like listen, I want to do this, for example, I wants to find the love of my life, right? That's a simple goal that a lot of people have. But people rarely think about what kind of system do I need to put in place, or I will engage in certain types of behavior on a regular basis in order to achieve that goal. So for this goal, for example, you can say, I will start talking to an attractive member of the opposite gender, once every day for the next 30 days, until I find someone that actually matches basically my desire as well as my criteria for a good partner. And this now is a system. So anytime you leave the house, the brain says, alright, I have a task today, I must talk to one attractive lady today. And hopefully, one of them will be the kind of woman that I want as my wife as a mother of my children, and so on and so forth. Right. So now you have a system. So you don't even think about the goal. And that's the beauty of having a system. You see, if instead of thinking about just your goals, you create systems that will lead to the achievement of that goal, you don't even have to think about your goals. So the man who says I will practice Chinese 50 minutes, basically every day using this particular app before going to work, he doesn't have to think about his goal of becoming fluent Mandarin Chinese in 234, or five years. If he just repeats that system regularly, he will get there. The same thing applies to the man who wants to find a good wife, the guy who goes and talks an attractive lady once per day every day for I don't know, 30 days or two months or three months, he or she will eventually find the right partner, even if he forgets about the original goal of getting married, and having a family because in the process of going through the system of meeting, for example, one attractive lady every day talking to her to see if she's a good match. And then perhaps inviting her asking her out on a date to actually see if she's going to be a good fit. He will eventually find you know the right woman for him. And it's just going to be part of the system, regardless of what the goal was originally, right. So perhaps, maybe the original goal was to become fluent and let's say Mandarin Chinese, and instead of actually studying Mandarin, he says I'm going to play this Chinese for example game every morning. And after a while, instead of focusing on the you know, learning the Chinese he gets hooked up on the game elements of that Chinese game. So the original goal is not forgotten. Completely. And now he's This system is focused now on getting good at this game, instead of learning the Mandarin Chinese. so in this situation since the system is, you know, inclined to focus on the game, rather than the language, in the long term, of course, he will fail to at the target of achieving that, you know, fluency, which means we never fail in goal setting. We all do it all the time. Now, some of us, we don't set them as often as we should. But you rarely if ever fail in achieving your goals, because you did not set the goal. That's just not going to happen. And unfortunately, in most cases, we fail to achieve our goals, because we fail to set the right systems in place that if we're good enough, would allow us to achieve those goals. So today, I would like you guys to think more about this issue. Think about goal setting a new way, as opposed to just goals and deadlines, which we use traditionally, ask yourself, instead of being obsessed with whether or not is the right goal, what kind of system can I set in place for me to actually work on those things on a regular basis? That's what you have to focus on most of the time. So when it comes to setting systems to achieve those goals, obviously the question is, what types of activities, if done regularly, will get me closer to achieving that goal, I've already given two examples, learning language, raising a family, but this could really apply to anything. Let's move on to business, you say, I want to increase my income by 25%. In the middle of a recession fueled by pandemic, that's right. During the same time, where a lot of businesses are shutting down, there are a few entrepreneurs who are actually increasing their income. Why? Because they have the goal to you know, make more money? I don't think so. You see, all businesses would like to increase their income. I mean, that's by default, no one business do you know, anyone business was like, No, I don't want to make money, I want to make less money. So it's kind of like you know, the Olympics, when it goes to the Olympics, and you look at all the athletes, one of them is going to be, you know, the gold medal winner, right. So one of them will be the number one top winner of that competition. So the person or the people who do not achieve that goal, and settle for the, let's say, silver medal or the bronze medal or simply cannot win any metal, do you think that those guys do not have the goal of becoming an Olympic champion. Of course, not. Every single person who takes part in the Olympics wants to be the champion, every business owner would like to increase their income. Every time you talk to basically an attractive member of the opposite gender, your goal is to hopefully have the best possible relationship with a suitable mate to raise a family with. Anytime you want to learn a subject you really want to get. I mean, you really want to get good. For example, at speaking Chinese you have the goal, you have the desire. So the problem here is not the goal. Because goal is there and everybody has them. The question is, do you have the right system. So the winner of the Olympic is going to be the person who has in basically in place, a system that allowed him or her to practice in the right way repeatedly, until having that body and that ability that allowed him or her to win the Olympics, the same thing goes with businesses who succeed in the middle of a pandemic, or those who are had with their relationships or achieve their educational goals. So from today, I'm trying to encourage you guys to look at goals a little bit differently, away from what is my goal, and focus more on what system do I need to put in place to achieve them? Now, systems generally, are links to habits, that means that almost everything we do these days, it's because of the habits that we have generated before. Most of us actually are running on autopilot most of the time. And because of this, you need to ask yourself, what kind of habits do I want to generate for myself, in order to achieve the kind of life that I have? So right now, every single one of you guys listening right now, you have certain habits, probably many of them that you repeat on a daily basis. Some of you wake up in the morning, and the first thing you do is to grab that phone and jump on social media. That's a very common habit. Some of you have a habit of wicked one morning and immediately, the moment you you know, you're afoot for example, such as the, you know, the, let's say floor, you start doing meditation. Some of you have a habit of wicked, I'm saying, oh, gosh, not another Tuesday. I'm so tired. You see, that's just one single habit. Maybe then you move on. Maybe some of you have a habit of waking up and just lighting up a cigarette. So these are all habits. And then we go throughout the day, repeating these habits, and thinking that this is just a habit. It's just too Aim. But ironically, changing your destiny and achieving the kind of goal that you really want for yourself is only possible if you start to look at the habits that you have every single day, and then try to, you know, change that. What essential aspects again, How the hell did you learn all these languages? Like, how do you do that? I say very simple. What do you do when you have your phone with you? They say, Well, I checked social media all the time. So I spell it, it's like, How much time do you spend on Instagram, for example, or on Facebook, and they say, well, three, four hours per day, I say, three to four hours. And there's a lot of good material in there, I just try to look at them, there's pretty fun. I say, Well, I spent about two and a half hours every day on practicing different languages. So you see, during the same time that you are browsing through useless posts, of celebrities, and like, you know, brainless entertainment on social media, which is a habit by the way for you every single day, checking people's stories, and all those things I am doing my flashcards I am practicing, you know, let's say my language is using my favorite apps such as Duolingo, memorize, and so on. So this is a habit. So when I work in the morning, the first thing I do is, as you already guessed, to do my Mandarin Chinese practice, because that's the hardest thing that I'm currently studying. And of course, I have to practice a lot, of course, then I move on to the other tasks. So I tell myself, if I have not done my Mandarin Chinese practice, which is, by the way, not that long, it takes no more than 15 minutes of my time, every morning, I'm not going to move on to the next task unless I have a very serious emergency. And then you ask yourself, alright, so I should probably cut back on Instagram, then I can do whatever I want. Not so much. So because if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you have to have the right again system in place to get you to towards what you want. So ultimately, it doesn't matter what your goals are, if you don't have the right habits, and the right routines, you can never possibly achieve them. You're saying well, then I want to be financially wealthy. I asked you one simple question. What are your financial systems in place? They're saying What are you talking about my financial system, a financial system is the way you approach your money. So right now, think about, you know, your income during the last month. Okay. Think of you know, last month, which for most of you guys, of course, if you're listening to us, you know, recently would be September. So think of your income in the month of September? How much did you earn? And then go back to your let's say, for example, of financial app, and then perhaps, or your bank app? And then look at your expenses? So how much did you basically spat using your master Visa card during the last month? And then compare these two? Did you make the same amount of money that you actually spent all of it? Did you perhaps managed to spend less than you earned? Or did you actually spend more than you earn, and added some credit on the side? So that's a simple habit, a very simple habit of not spending more than you earn. But guess what happens? Think of someone who has one simple system in place. And his entire financial system can be summed up by one thing. I look at my income during last month, that's a month of September. And let's say the amount was $6,000, for example, and I tell myself, that I must spend less than $6,000 during the month of October. So what do you think the future of this person looks like financially? do you predict him to go broke all of a sudden? Is that likely? Probably not? And what about the opposite? What if somebody actually is making $4,000 a month, and is just going to spend all of it? So what type of future will he have probably always dependent on the next paycheck, like most Americans, or think of somebody else who has probably made two or $3,000. And things are tough in the economy, and actually spent 5000 we're gonna future Do you see for him or her financially? You see, ultimately, your life is shaped by the habits and the systems you have in place that you repeat on a regular basis, because anything applies to your fitness. So how often do you go to the gym? How often do you care about what you're eating? How often do you, you know, take care of your basically amount of hours that you put into, you know, your sleep, having a good night, good nicely. You see, ultimately, once you try to look at your life and yourself as a series of habits that you have, then all of a sudden realize, oh boy, all I got to do is change a few of my habits, and whammo, my entire life will change. So today I'm actually asking right now, think about your life right now, at this moment. From the moment you wake up until you go to bed. What habits are you repeating good or bad? Think of some good habits that you can actually add to your life right now what could they be? Perhaps going for a jog every morning? Instead of letting a cigarette or having, you know, very heavy coffee? How about replacing the habit of social media as I have done, you probably have noticed this. After finishing the book together, I actually substantially I reduced my social media, basically usage to a very minimum, of course, in terms of usage, I'm probably close to zero. Now, I almost do not consume any material on social media. But of course, I've also reduced my postings as well, because I wanted to have that time available to do other things. Right. So how about replacing excessive usage of social media? with some other beneficial educational activity? How about replacing Instagram? Not completely, of course. But let's say you spend one or two hours per day on Instagram, how about spending only 10 minutes on Instagram, and then dedicate the rest of that time to studying a foreign language to learning a new trade, getting an online education, where there's I don't know, MBA, or whatever it is, what about, you know, putting that time for your health? How about using that time to exercise you see, by nearly changing these little things you do every single day, and then repeating those again, and again, and again, you will then change your destiny in ways you cannot even think of as possible today, because those changes are going to somehow accumulate, and they will exponentially change your life in the long term. So today, as you're currently listening, I want you right now, to go through your entire routines every single day. Maybe you spend a little bit too much time playing Dota. Maybe you spend a lot of time watching Netflix, even though you don't even like it so much. Perhaps you're not physically active enough? How could you change some of these things? How would you find ways for you to create and installed new habits in your life that will allow you to repeat good behaviors and avoid bad ones. Because ultimately, once you have the right systems in place, for example, for going to gym, you can create a system. And the system is anytime I leave work, I immediately go home, grab basically my, let's say, yours and run to the gym. That's one system. Or you can simply have a system that come You know, you come home, and you grab that beer, and you start you know, drinking beer watching TV, both our systems, but they will have dramatically different results in the long term. So having discussed all of these things today, I would like to now encourage you guys to take this very seriously and start looking at your life as a series of habits fueled by their own systems that you repeat again and again and again, throughout the day, day after day, week, after week, month after month, year after year, you are your habits, you are your routines. There are moments in the middle that you break all that routine, and you start traveling and you go to a party. But those are not what you do regularly unless that's your job or something. So for most of us, we have to look at the things we do on a routine basis. And now of course, thanks to the pandemic, a lot of us we have, you know, more time available to spend indoors. And this gives us a great chance to reflect again, you can go home during a pandemic and say, Well, I got nothing to do, let me just waste another two hours on the darn social media. Or you can take that time to start reflecting itself a system that allows you to make your life better and better by thinking about what you're doing right now and how you can take it to the next level. So ultimately, today, I wanted to encourage you to relook at your life differently, to see yourself as nothing more than a series of routines that you repeat again and again and again. And understanding that if you want to change your destiny, if you want to change your life, you don't just need to create new goals. I mean, that's just very obvious. But more importantly, than having new goals is to creating new systems and habits that will allow you to achieve those goals and get the best results possible. So overall, that's all the time we have for today. I really would like to thank all of you for your attention. The podcast, fortunately, is becoming more and more popular among our listeners. And we would like to thank all of you for tuning in for every single episode to check all of our programs. As you realize now we have a lot of new additions to our podcast and we're trying to offer you as much as possible. And obviously if you have any questions you can always contact us directly or simply wishes on the social media. That's all the time we have for my name is Daniel Morgan and this was beyond the present podcast.