What do you do when things aren’t going as you planned?

I’m glad that although not everything goes as planned, some things do.  For instance, I’m glad that when I close my eyes at night to rest, my body knows what to do.  I don’t know the science of it all, but part of it involves a voluntary and involuntary system.  Without me consciously thinking about it ,by body takes over and I am able to sign-off and get the rest I need.

Likewise, my heart circulates blood to every part of my body to nourish it.  I also grow- trimmed nails regenerate- hairs (albeit very few) grow.

So, although not everything goes as planned, I’m glad some things do.

How about you?  I’m sure there are some things going your way right now and some that are not.

In my experience you can get discouraged about the things that are not working and still do nothing about them.

Again, you see but do not act.

Time goes by and nothing happens.

There are lots of one liners to encourage this, such as…’Let go and let God’, ‘It will happen’.  We here this type of thinking all the time.  The most recent philosophy is ‘It is what it is’.

Now acceptance is one thing, but resignation is another.

As a leader, your job is to take what is and make it better.  Streamline it.  Maximize.  Get results.  Help people do what they want to do, but can’t without you.

I’ll use a recent dining experience as an example.  We went to a pizza place.  I won’t say where, but it was a chain store.  The first person we were greeted by was a young girl wearing a blue dress rather than a uniform.  In fact a rather young girl who said ‘I don’t work here, I’m just helping out’.  Bizarre.

When she came back to take our order, we couldn’t order because she hadn’t given us any menus.

She never came back to ask how the food was or if we needed more drinks.

Without going any further, you can imagine there was very little customer service going on.

So what was wrong?  The system had gone south.

I’m sure that someone had a system in place and it was not being carried out.  Thankfully there were parts that held up and the food was excellent thanks to pre-made pies and an automatic oven.  But the point is whoever designed the system would have been rolling in their grave.

Like the pizza place mentioned, you have systems in your own life.  A way of doing things and getting results.

You and your spouse have a system.

You and your employer have a system.

You have a system that begins every morning when you wake up.  It may or may not involve exercise, but it’s a system nonetheless.

In most cases, you don’t need to chuck out your whole system like last weeks trash.  You need to tweak it.  Maximize it.  Incorporate new elements.  The good news is that small changes can lead to large results.

Once you make the changes in your system, they become automatic and once they become automatic, they require less energy to perform.  They become habits.

As a master teacher, Jesus was all about re-evaluating old systems and implementing new ones.

For example, in Matthew chapter five alone, he says “You’ve heard it said” five times in one chapter.  Each time he does, he follows up with a ‘but….

In fact, in chapters 5, 6 and 7, Jesus taught a discourse that people have been incorporating for centuries.  Work them into your life and they create radical results.

One thing we do when are systems aren’t working as they should is put the blame on people.  When in fact, our spouse isn’t to blame.  Our employees aren’t to blame.  Our children aren’t to blame.  It’s not a matter of people failing, it’s system failure.

The systems we’ve designed over the years are achieving perfect results, they just may not be the results we intended.

I know that may not be what you want to hear right now, but there’s good news!

Change your systems and you can change your life.

With that thought in mind, what is one system in your life that needs changing and what steps are you going to take to change it?