As discussed the previous posts, Learning Our Leverage Points and Leveraging Our Interactions, we can make our lives easier if we know what force to apply when.  We can also lighten our load so to speak as we can focus on applying effort where it’s needed instead of just working endlessly.

The other leverage points to consider are our goals, the rules we set for ourselves, how we manage delays and the recognition of where systems self organize.  We must set goals for ourselves or others will do it for us.  Goals increase our value to our future selves. We started discussing goals and our orientation to the future in the post What’s Your Intention back in December.   We’ll dive deeper into targets, goals, objectives and vision in a future post.    Similarly, the rules we set for ourselves reinforce our activities that ultimately should be aimed at meeting our goals.  As life is chaotic and unpredictable, how we manage delays may give us the opportunity to balance or reinforce our intentions. If we know there will be a wait at the doctor’s office then we should take a book or something we can work on.

The last leverage point is self-organization.  Have you ever watched some unfamiliar kids play on a playground?  There are an infinite number of permutations of what can happen, but what’s interesting is when they interact they learn quickly what the other children are open to.  And, there are times when kids will organize into doing things all with a sense of play in a matter of minutes.  This is one example of where a system of children self organize into an activity.  As a parent we watch to ensure  our kid will not be harmed, but can lessen our attention if all goes well, if the system self organizes.   With the identification of self organizing elements or subsystems, we can move our focus to other elements that require attention to develop or move forward towards our intentions.

Seeing ourselves as a system that integrates within the larger system of our environment has great benefit.  It allows us to see the elements in our life in a way that begets management of those elements, their interactions and our interaction with our environment.  If we can make any one of those interactions or elements more effective or efficient then we bring ourselves closer to our objectives, no matter what they may be.  When we add value to ourselves, we likewise add value to the larger systems and environment we integrate with.