Lately, I’ve been thinking about the connection between boring routines and goal achievement.

A young aspiring author recently asked for advice on writing his first book. “I have a great idea for a novel,” he told me, “but I can’t seem to finish the first chapter. I just get stuck. What’s wrong with me?”

I felt for him, often having felt the despair of striving toward a goal that I just can’t seem to reach. When I wouldn’t meet my goal I would get down on myself, both feeling bad that I couldn’t achieve what I set out to accomplish and wondering if it was a mistake to set the goal in the first place. It felt like defeat.

I see the same challenge with my coaching clients. They often have powerful visions of the future that seem to always remain in the distance, like a setting sun on the horizon. To them, it seems like they’re always chasing, never catching.

However, I’ve come to learn that we often place the blame for this in the wrong place. 

What we might ascribe to a lack of motivation or even personal failing is actually nothing of the sort. Failure to meet a goal doesn’t mean that you aren’t the right person, it means that you haven’t yet created the right system. And routines are the building blocks of effective systems.

Routines get a bad name (who wants to be routine?) but they are the ingredients of extraordinary change.

THE MAGIC TRICK

It’s like watching a magician perform an amazing trick. To the audience, it looks like he waved his magic wand and made his assistant disappear and reappear. From the inside, though, the effect is easily explained by a linear series of simple mechanisms. A process. A routine.

Once you see how the trick is done, the glamour quickly wears off. What once appeared mystical is revealed to be mind-numbingly simple.

So, I decided to help the young author examine his system by asking him a series of “why” questions…

Why do you think you’re stuck? “Because I can’t even finish the first chapter.”

Why can’t you finish the first chapter? “I can’t concentrate and I lose focus every time.”

Why do you lose focus? “There’s so much chaos always happening!”

Why is there chaos? “Because my house is always so noisy that I can’t pay attention.”

Within the space of a few questions, he came to see that he didn’t need to judge himself as lazy, or a bad writer, or a failure—all things he had been doing. He just needed to find a better system.

So he created a new routine and started writing exclusively in the early mornings and late at night to avoid the noise. He just sent me a draft of his completed first chapter.

YOUR ROUTINE

Of course, this conversation isn’t about writing a book. It’s about the power of objectively noticing the impediments to reaching our goal and designing routines and systems to blow past what previously held us back.

I have found that these four critical areas determine much of your effectiveness as a leader:

• How you start your day

• How you prioritize your workload

• How you influence the people around you

• 1:1 conversations with team members

Get these right and your leadership iwill appear magical from the outside. 

“Look at Thomas. I don’t understand how he gets so much done and still has energy left over.”

“Helen is such a great leader… she just has the knack.” 

In truth, the only magic that ever happened was creating a powerful routine that didn’t exist before.

What system can you create today to lead even more powerfully?