“You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”
⁃ James Clear, Atomic Habits
At the start of 2020 I set a goal to write in this blog publicly each day. Then after a month, I scaled it back to one each week, which felt more sustainable.
(It’s such a me thing to set a lofty goal then have to scale it back…. hmmm, makes me curious…..)
Then came the pandemic, and I haven’t written publicly in 3 months!
I’ve got a long list of excuses…
Our six kids doing school online at home for six weeks throughout April/May.
Teaching part-time maths from home via zoom.
And trying to navigate what all this meant for Forever Projects as the dust slowly settled.
But as the quote from Atomic Habits so clearly lays out – the real obstacle to any goal is the system that it exists in.
You may have a goal to throw a ball 50m in the air, but the system you’re in (gravity!) will be an obstacle to your goal.
That’s true of a goal to write a blog, be a good parent, eat healthy food….. anything.
So as we kick off into the second half of this crazy year, I’m increasingly curious about the systems and environments I’m in that prevent potential energy converting to kinetic.
What’s stopping the movement I’m interested in seeing in my life and the world?
It’s pretty easy to look externally at systems and circumstances and point the finger at why the change you care about didn’t happen.
But having gone back through some notes I made from reading Atomic Habits at the start of the year, i’m more interested in starting internally, with my own life system.
Because no matter which external system or environment I find myself in, there I am with my own individual life system.
The common denominator.
So I’m reflecting on what this life system of mine looks like.
How does it sound?
And how is it designed to sound?
Potentially Kinetic 