Success comes down to doing the obvious thing for an extraordinary period of time, without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you think you are.
Shane Parrish
A system can be defined as a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme or method.
Over the last 10 years, every time I’ve had a meaningful goal, I’ve put together a simple plan of tasks and habits to help me get there. I figured out that the secret to these plans was actually in removing stuff out and keep it super simple. This made it way easier to adjust things along the way.
Each stray from the path was an opportunity to understand deeper nuances of my strategy. Was the system too rigid? Was it too complex? Was it ready for unpredictibility? The deviations revealed the answers, guiding me to tweak my system, making it resilient and adaptable.
Through this process, the learning was deep. Success, as I came to see it, wasn’t a straight sprint towards a finish line full of sharp corrections, but a more relaxed and constant trip with slight adaptations over a simplified routine. This perspective takes most of the stress and the regret away from the process, making it way more sustainable and enjoyable.
For example, why follow a complicated diet filled with detailed restrictions and hard-to-find ingredients? Keep it simple, repeat the process consistently, and if you miss a day, return the next day without regrets. View any mistake as a deviation and a learning opportunity. Correct it the next day by returning to your system, not by taking drastic actions.