Solving the Wrong Problem
For the longest time, I thought I had solved one of my biggest problems around managing my money. I began grocery shopping with a list and planning my meals for the entire week, and I expected that it would allow me to plan efficient, cost-effective meals, and set my health up for success. In hindsight, this idea actually worked for the first couple of days. I cooked and planned accordingly, my grocery bill stayed consistent, and everything felt under my control.
Unfortunately, after a few days, my routine began to break down. I stopped following through with my plan. This wasn’t because I didn’t know how to cook, but because I just didn’t want to do it. On days where my routine was busy, cooking felt like too much effort, so I’d constantly switch to easier options, such as takeout or quick, easy fast food. I basically just stopped cooking myself entirely, leaving the groceries I had bought unused and wasted.
By the end of the week that I had planned to change, I had spent an extra 30-40$ on convenient alternatives. The plan seemed solid, but when I really tried to follow it, it fell apart because I depended on a lot of consistency that I didn’t yet have.
In my first post, I talked a lot about how structure was something that I was missing. That wasn’t the real problem. Sure, having a lack of systems contributed to my inconsistency, but the real issue was that my routine depended entirely on motivation. In times where I simply didn’t feel like following through with my plan, I defaulted to easier options that cost me time, money, and health. What I thought was a solid plan really only worked under ideal conditions, when they should have been there for when I needed them most.
My system failed because I thought simply having a plan was enough. I built them on days where I was motivated to carry them out, without accounting for days where I wouldn’t. When days like those came, I had no backup to rely on other than pure effort, and effort alone, is unreliable, especially over time. Specifically, my outcomes were being driven by my decisions at the moment, which varied in consistency day over day, and eventually that inconsistency broke my system down entirely and I was essentially back to where I started.
This was my “Ah-ha!” moment to thinking about systems. Instead of building them by relying on my pure motivation to sustain them, I focused on building them to still be sustained when I wasn’t motivated. The difference came down to decision making. Systems that require constant decision making and effort are inconsistent, but building systems that rely as little as possible on in the moment decision making are a lot more reliable. When cooking food became dependent on me deciding spontaneously, I would drift off to whatever was the simplest and least effort consuming option. However, when I would reduce the amount of effort required, my system would hold up even under low energy.
After understanding this, I adjusted how I approached my everyday life. Instead of relying on motivation to cook every single day, I focused on making the system easier to follow. I started choosing simple, easy to make recipes, and preparing food ahead of time to function as reliable alternatives throughout the week, while keeping in mind the importance of my nutrition goals and health. My goal wasn’t to be perfect with this plan, but to remove as much in the moment decision making as possible throughout the week.
However, this applies way beyond food. Any system that involves managing limited resources like time, money, or energy, can break down if it is too dependent on motivation. The decisions that are made during low effort moments follow the easiest available path, and over time, these decisions can determine the outcome of your system. This is key to ensuring your systems’ consistency is stable when your energy is low.
While living alone, I was not only shown whether I had structure, but whether my systems could hold up if I was tired, unmotivated, or busy. Planning was the easy part, but building systems that genuinely worked was the real challenge.
