Today I did a quick course at work on how to get your team to change. It was an interesting little course. The instructor shared a few interesting examples that illustrated various attempts to digitise the farming industry. I was fascinated by what’s available to farmers today. That wasn’t the point of the exercise though. The point was to illustrate how to get people to adopt new behaviours.
While I have had many firsts and quite a few wins this year, there are goals that I have not met so I need to go back to the drawing board. There are two goals in particular that I have not met:
I have not achieved my weight goal
In fact I am further from it than I was at the beginning of this year. I am very disappointed but it is what it is. One of the lessons learnt in today’s course is that the change needs to have few barriers to entry for easy adoption. Well I have done myself a disservice by joining a gym that is essentially out of my way. I had done so that I my son and I could attend it together but it is so far out of our way in the evening that we just never get there. I have one of two choices. Join a gym that is closer or let go of the idea of going with him and find something else to do together. The gym is not really out of my way as it is close to work. If I choose the latter option, I can work it into my lunchtime schedule and make a big dent in that weight loss goal.
I have not created an organisational system that works
Yet. It’s not for a lack of trying all year long. As I mentioned previously, I like the idea of the system shared in Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain, but it’s not intuitive for me so I am figuring out how to make the principles work. Which brings me to another principle I learned today, which is that the system needs to be user friendly. The fewer sets you have to get things done, the more likely you are to have a positive attitude about it and do it. I am trying to get my system down to 3-4 steps at most to store information and retrieve it. I get can quite get lost when I have to click on too many things to find what I need.
The system must be implementable immediately
If a system still needs to be modified and adjusted or you need to buy additional equipement to get started, it’s pretty likely that you won’t achieve your goal. The first time I logged onto my MacBook Air, a YouTube video popped to show me how to use my new computer. It was a few minutes long and it showed me how to do the basics and I was good to go. I am so grateful for that video because I would have been very frustated with the laptop and regretted my purchase. I also would not have used it as much as I would have liked. I was able to get to work immediately after that video which was a huge bonus.
So I failures are a great way to learn and I have enjoyed the challenges that I have faced this year. I experienced more challenges than just these two this year and I am very grateful that I come out standing strong on the other side.
Do you have any tips on how to adopt new systems/habits? I would love to hear form you in the comments. Thanks for reading! Be Blessed!
Grounded African 