On May 17, 2006, FC Barcelona won the UEFA Champions League trophy after defeating Arsenal 2-1 in the final game of the competition. Big things were expected from this crop of Barcelona players and their system of football. Sadly, that never materialized. After two years without any major trophies, in 2008 it was crystal clear to everyone that there was a need for a system overhaul.

That system overhaul came in the form of Pep Guardiola. With a focus on aggressively retaining possession of the ball, as well as diligently applying relentless pressure on opponents in the few times they had a sniff of ball possession, Guardiola and his team went on to win 14 out of 18 major trophies over the course of four seasons. That is a whooping 77.8% success rate!!!

Yet, when Guardiola took over the reins as Barcelona’s head coach, his goal was not to win all the trophies that were available. In his book Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning, Guillem Balague shares what Guardiola said in his first meeting with the Barcelona squad in 2008:

“Gentlemen, good morning. You can imagine what a huge motivation it is for me to be here, to coach this team. It is the ultimate honor. Above all, I love the club. I would never make a decision that would harm or go against the club. Everything I am going to do is based on my love for FC Barcelona. We need and want order and discipline…I only ask this of you. I won’t tell you off if you misplace a pass, or miss a header that costs us a goal, as long as I know you are giving 100 percent. I could forgive you any mistake, but I won’t forgive you if you don’t give your heart and soul to Barcelona. I’m not asking results of you, just performance. I won’t accept people speculating about performance if it’s half-hearted or people aren’t giving their all. This is Barça, gentlemen, this is what is asked of us and this is what I will ask of you. You have to give your all…When we have the ball, we can’t lose it. When that happens, run and get it back. That is it, basically.“

Note how Guardiola did not mention anything about winning trophies, or even winning games. Yet, by the time he was done with his managerial career at Barcelona, he had managed to achieve phenomenal success with his team.

So, how did Guardiola attain idol status during his time at Barcelona? He simply focused on systems at the expense of goals.

The System on the Backend

Motivational speakers typically mislead thousands by urging them to follow their passions and do what they love. In addition, motivational speakers are also guilty of hammering on the need to chase goals. This is why people keep on setting new year resolutions and failing them within days. While smart goals are desirable for providing clarity and direction, depending solely on them for change is like resting your entire weight on a dry and brittle twig – not only would you fall down, you’d also get your hand pierced!

One thing that Guardiola understood was that systems were more powerful in bringing about the attainment of goals. He was not obsessed with winning trophies. Rather, he was engrossed with the kind of players that were recruited into the team, as well as the system of precise triangular single-touch passes that his players used in walking the ball into the opposition’s net. Because of the system of play he instilled into his players’ subconscious minds, FC Barcelona literally won every single trophy that was up for grabs.

Here’s is an interesting angle to consider: If, after you had developed a clear goal, you went ahead to ignore it, totally focusing your energies on building and perfecting your system, would you still attain your goals?

The answer is a resounding yes!!!

Here’s what James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, had to say in this matter:

“The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”

Ironically, peddlers of false advice are often righteous practitioners of sound principles on the backend. For many motivational speakers and gurus, their goal is to become the best in their niches. However, unlike their ignorant audiences, these speakers know that merely setting goals would not bring them closer to their attainments. As a result, they devote themselves to perfecting their systems of stage mastery, oration and, persuasion. Naturally, they get the results – which sadly also leads to the dissemination of poisonous information.

The Primordial System of the Father

The Creation Story as recorded in Genesis 1 is a microcosm of everything that makes the seen world tick. When we take a closer examination, what we simply find is a story of God establishing systems that will continue to run till the end of time. Indeed, as it was revealed to William of Occam (circa 1287–1347), “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less” Everything that God did in those six days of creation was deliberate and it counted towards a specific purpose. God expended effort in establishing an efficient system that was capable of self-propagating indefinitely. No creative word was wasted.

Consider the creative system that God established to ensure the continuation of plant life on earth:

Genesis 1:11-12 says, ‘And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.’

Note how God embedded the capacity for plants to procreate indefinitely. He created plants with the ability to produce seeds, while also creating seeds the ability to produce plants. We all acknowledge that God is the Almighty, All-Powerful Creator, and there is nothing stopping Him from applying creative effort every instance that there was a need for a new plant or herb in the field. Expending creative energies to continually create plants would have been cool to see. However, it would not have been efficient. Hence, after God had clarified His goal of creating a physical world for His glory and pleasure (Colossians 1:16; Revelation 4:11), He set up a system to ensure that goal was consistently attained.

The same thing repeats itself in Genesis 1:28 after God had created mankind.

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

God did not create another Adam and Eve one million times. Rather, He created a system that enabled Adam and Eve to reproduce offsprings in their own likeness. God created the system of sexual reproduction as an ironclad guarantee that there would always be life on the planet.

God loves order and process, and He is very systematic. This is why Genesis 2:2 could happen. “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

God did not rest because He was exhausted from the efforts that went into creating the heavens and earth. It wasn’t as if God was going to pass out if He had created one more thing. Rather, God rested because of the systems He had already established. There was literary nothing that God needed to create that wasn’t already created. It’s the same thing that happens when an artist has finished a great masterpiece that he had been working on. When the artist is done with the painting, there is no more work left to be done on it. So he rests from that painting job. That’s exactly the same thing that God did with His Creation process.

Leverage Systems to Rest

Man was made in God’s image and likeness. This means that we have a portion of the very essence of God’s Nature embedded in humanity. This implies that there are certain manifestations of God’s character in our persons and behaviors. We have the ability to appreciate goals because God appreciates goals. Furthermore, if God had the ability to set up systems to efficiently and effectively attain His creation goals, we also have the ability to do so.

That is why I think that the author of Hebrews writes a stern warning in Hebrews 4:1:

“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.”

The ultimate goal is to enter into a state of rest, where you cease from your works. However, God has established fail-proof systems for every aspect of your existence on both sides of eternity. There is a system for salvation. There are also godly systems for attaining prosperity, healing and peace like clockwork. Yet, because many people are oblivious to the working of systems, they miss out on the state of rest that God has established for them.

The writer of Hebrews continues in verse 3 of the same chapter:

“For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.”

When you believe in God’s methods and systems, your learning curve becomes shortened and you enter into His “Genesis 2:2” kind of rest quickly. There is no need to expend time and effort in reinventing the wheel. God has already established systems from the foundation of the earth and you can find His unmistakable signature in Nature – only if you are able to observe and see them.

The culmination of this idea can be found in Hebrews 4:11:

“Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”

After everything is said and done, there is only one kind of labor you should expend all your efforts in doing. That work is one done in establishing systems for yourself. And when you walk in total faith in God and key yourself in the methods and systems that He has already set up, your life becomes like a six-course meal prepared specifically for you.

Ultimately, as James Clear has quipped time and time again, “You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” Today, start praying, thinking of, searching for and implementing tested systems that would dramatically improve the quality of your life.

Have you ever wondered how public speakers regularly come up with good ideas that are so deep, profound and thought-provoking?

Growing up, I remember coming across good ideas encapsulated in sayings such as:

“Your attitude determines your altitude.” , 

“If you do not know where you are going, people will lead you to where they are going”, and,

“Your location determines your allocation.”

While many of these thoughts forced me into reflection, they also created a desire to know how to come up with good and shareable ideas of my own.

Then one day, I received light in one of my blindspots concerning the origin of good ideas.

Someone had shared the story of how God spoke to the heart of a pastor stuck in traffic in one of Nigeria’s busier cities. Traffic lights were non-functional, and there were no traffic police around. As a result, chaos broke out. Horns blared and drivers hurled obscenities at each other. On that road, survival was the name of the game and only the toughest drivers escaped unscathed. Ultimately, in a manner of minutes, there was a total standstill as there were bottlenecks everywhere – caused by impatient drivers driven by selfishness and disregard for anyone but themselves. It was within this chaos that this pastor found the clarity in his heart to hear the following words:

Where there is no order, stagnation is bound to be the order of the day!

If you consider that statement, you’d realize that so much truth and practical value were packed into those few words. For instance, if you fail to put your finances in order – clearly separating out your income, expenses, liabilities and assets – it would only be a matter of time before you find yourself in a state of financial stagnation.

There is no doubt that God planted the seeds of this wonderful idea into this pastor’s heart. However, the same way seeds do not grow in the absence of other factors such as good soil, nutrients and water, good ideas would not thrive in the wrong environment. There were certain things that worked in the pastor’s favor, such that he was able to pick out the good idea in the midst of the stress and chaos that reigned supreme around him. While there are so many ways to skin a cat, I would be sharing three practical tips that you can use to consistently source good ideas.

Good Ideas Come From Seeing Everything Connected

If someone gave you a gift of $100 and somewhere along the line you lost it, research has shown that you would not feel as hurt as you would if you lost $100 from your hard-earned money. In spite of the fact that we mentally acknowledge that a $100 bill has the same value, regardless of if it was given to us as a gift or as a part of our salary, we subconsciously appropriate different values to the different $100 bills depending on the circumstances that surround how we got the money in the first place. The process of compartmentalizing money into different categories based on how we feel about the money is referred to as mental accounting.

Unfortunately, our tendency to compartmentalize is not limited to money. We do the same thing in our relationship with God. We create “God time” in the morning and evenings where we pray and read the Bible in 30 minutes, while we live the remaining 23 hours and 30 minutes on our own terms without giving so much as a thought about God. We compartmentalize our lives and it is no surprise that we lead spiritually empty lives because we have learned to live so long away from the influence of the Source.

Interestingly, our tendency to compartmentalize is also one of the reasons why we find it difficult to get good ideas. Many of us fail to see the overlap between different bodies of knowledge and as a result, the probabilities of finding good ideas become slimmer than ever.

Here’s an example of a good idea I bent into a quote:

Everything reverts into a state of chaos. Order is enforced by power

– Promise Tewogbola

To get the first part of my quote, I borrowed from my limited understanding of the second law of thermodynamics as explained in physics and chemistry. In addition, I observed that any time I vacuumed my room and put it in order, it was only a matter of time before I found the need to clean the room again. This is because of the tendency for everything to fall into disrepair if left to be by itself. The second part of the quote was gotten from my realization that it took effort on my part to put my room back into order.

The more I thought about my quote, the more I realized that it was a pretty good idea that had practical value in the real world. For instance, if you are in a romantic relationship and you refuse to talk about issues in the relationship with your better half, it would only be a matter of time before chaos becomes the order of the day in that relationship. However, the moment you take the effort to engage in uncomfortable conversations with your partner, you would dramatically improve the quality of your relationship. The same thing happens when you are trying to keep fit. The fact that you worked had in the gym 5 months ago does not mean that you would be in shape 5 months from now. If you expend the time and effort to get in shape, only to rest your oars, you would find your shape reverting back into that initial state of ‘shapelessness’ and chaos. So, to keep in shape, you have to embrace personal power with yourself and expend the effort in beating yourself back into the image you desire.

Everything is connected in one form or the other. If you want to consistently find good ideas, stop compartmentalizing your life. Rather, approach life with the paradigm of connectedness. Make it your responsibility to find associations and applications that link seemingly diametrically opposed bodies of knowledge. You will be positively surprised by the sheer quantity and quality of the good ideas you churn in the long run.

Good Ideas Come to the Expectant Mind

After being equipped with the paradigm of seeing everything connected, the next ingredient for sourcing good ideas is to have an expectation for them. The role that our expectations play in our lives cannot be overemphasized. While there are people who are conscious of the inter-relatedness of things, they are so many people who subconsciously believe that they are not smart enough to come up with good ideas. This pattern of thinking is not only toxic to good ideas, it is also capable of forcing people into mediocre existences because their expectations have been trained to work against them.

The truth is that your expectations determine your experiences.

If you know that everything is connected and you expect that one way or the other, you would find those associations, it is only a matter of time before you start seeing those associations.

There are different ways people activate their expectations towards good ideas. Some people have a thinking cap they wear whenever they want to come up with good ideas. Some other people have a thinking spot in their houses or somewhere in their towns where they regularly go to for good ideas. Personally, I take a two-legged approach. First, I try to stir curiosity in my mind. The person who felt that curiosity killed the cat made the wrong diagnosis. I am genuinely interested in learning new things because I know that a good idea can be birthed by virtue of my exposure to new information. Secondly, I try to move around with a small notebook that fits my pocket. That way, I have a physical way to show my expectation to come in contact with good ideas. And when the ideas do come, I am already equipped with the tools to capture them.

For all the flak that the law of attraction has received over the years, this is actually one area of your life where there are undeniable proofs that it works. If you consistently expect a good idea to come whenever you wear a stupid cap, it’s only a matter of time before that becomes your experience. If you continue to expect good ideas to come at you when you sit on a silly chair in your house, or you are in a particular corner in your city’s park, your expectations will not be cut short and in time, you will start experiencing the awe that accompanies good ideas. If you embrace a curious heart for novel ideas, you will experience them, and if you walk around with a notebook to capture good ideas, it’s only a matter of time before you start attracting them like ants to sugar.

Good Ideas Come When You Consistently Celebrate the Mundane

Many people associate good ideas with lightning and fireworks. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The good idea behind the quote – ‘Where there is no order, stagnation is bound to be the order of the day!‘ – came in the middle of terrible traffic. A part of the idea behind my quote – ‘Everything reverts into a state of chaos. Order is enforced by power’ – came from me observing how my room gradually became disorganized over time. If you live in a big city, you are likely going to find yourself in terrible traffic at some point and if you have a place where you live, it is likely that you have had to rearrange your room times without number. Yet, not many people would have been able to take advantage of the mundane routine in their lives to come up with good ideas.

The reason is simple. Many people are not present to the moment. And the number one reason why a lot of people are not present to the moment is because of fear. People are afraid of the past, the present, as well as the future. They have a constant fear of the unknown constantly humming in the back of their minds. They are worried sick about things that are either out of their control, or won’t matter once the facts are changed.

The moment you deliberately choose to be present to the moment and actively engage with the mundane events of day-to-day living, you separate yourself from the myriads of individuals walking with their minds miles and years away from their physical bodies. By so doing, you place yourself in an advantageous position where you are likely going to find a good idea that escaped the consciousness of every other person.

Like every other human out there, I have habits. While I am proud of some of these habits, I am not particularly proud of many others.

In fact, I had this very embarrassing habit that took me a while to shake off (And no, it is not the one that I wrote a book about). Let’s just say that I had a really strange case of pica. It so happened that whenever I drank water, be it from a plastic bottle or from a plastic sachet, I always ended chewing up either the cover or the plastic sachet itself. In fact, there was this day I was walking back from school and I had a sachet of water in my hands. Of course, by the time I was done drinking the water, I found myself chewing on the plastic material. Unknown to me, someone had been watching me go through the whole routine. Eventually, I saw her, but it was too late. I already had three-fourths of the sachet in my mouth!

Of course, since I’m a big boy now, I do not have that habit anymore!

So what changed? How did I make the transition from mindlessly chewing on plastics to being in a default state of not being tempted at all?

Keep reading and you’d be surprised at how much my simple discovery will transform every aspect of your life.

The Power of Planning for Pain on Habits

Researchers once conducted an experiment to see how people were able to develop new habits. These scientists recruited 100 elderly men who had just gone through hip or knee replacement surgeries. Recovering from this specific surgical procedure can be a very painful process and the patients need to start moving their joints almost immediately after they wake up from the surgery. If they failed to do so, they might develop internal blood clots which may be life-threatening. However, since the surgery causes an extremely intense pain, the recovering patients are not particularly excited about staying mobile.

So, here’s what the researchers did: They gave each man a booklet where they would write down the specific ways that they were going to follow the doctors’ orders to stay mobile. For instance, they could write something like, ‘I am going to walk down Claire Street by 5:30 pm on Monday evening.’

At the end of 14 weeks, the researcher compared the recoveries of the men that wrote an action plan with those that did not write an action plan.

As you would imagine, the guys that wrote a plan were nearly three times more mobile than those who did not write down any goals. These men were walking faster, doing laundry, tying their shoelaces and even making their meals at the end of three months!

To the researchers’ credit, they did not stop at merely at claiming that writing down your goals will help you effortlessly start a new habit. I mean, come on! We all have goals we’ve written at some points in our lives which we failed to take any action on.

So, there was obviously something else that was common to all the men that had written a plan.

As the researchers delved into the booklet of each patient that had written a goal, they discovered an amazing trend.

You see, all the men that had written down their goals had also anticipated the hindrances that would have prevented them from being mobile. And not only that, but they also had an action plan of what to do when they eventually faced that hindrance. For instance, some men anticipated that they would feel an excruciating pain in the days after the surgery anytime they wanted to stand up. So, they planned, long before they actually felt the pain, that whenever they stood up, they would immediately take that first step, rather than sitting back down to ease the pain.

The men who succeeded could do so because of two things. First, they anticipated pain before the pain came, and then, most importantly, they made a plan of what to do when the pain eventually came. As a result, they were able to endure the pain and reap the benefits of staying mobile over the cause of 14 weeks.

Daniel’s Plan For Pain

For a while, I have been looking for teachings from the Bible on specific instructions for creating good habits. I really had a difficult time finding Bible characters who had poor habits, made tweaks, and then developed healthy habits.

Then I was studying my Bible the other day and came across the story of Daniel in Daniel 1:8, 12,

‘But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank…Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink.‘

Like in the experiment for the surgery dudes, long before he was faced with the temptation of defiling himself with the pagan king’s delicacies, Daniel had already purposed in his heart.

Long before he was confused by the smell of grilled meat sacrificed to idols, Daniel had already developed an action plan of eating pulses and water.

As a result, when he was eventually in a situation where he could not escape being around the king’s meals, it was easy for Daniel to resist the temptation and simply focus on the alternatives he had created for himself.

And herein lies the secret first step to creating very powerful habits: You need to make a plan of action long before you are faced with the temptation to fall into bad habits. 

In my embarrassing habit of chewing on plastic sachets and covers, I needed to create a plan of what to do with the cover/sachet long before I even had it in my hand. Since I knew I had the habit of wanting to chew something after drinking water, I got myself an alternative in the form of chewing gum. So, as soon as I was done drinking water, I threw the plastic cover/sachet into a nearby trashcan and simply chewed gum instead!

This is so simple, yet it has the potent capacity to turn your life around dramatically.

Do you find it difficult to create the time to meditate? How about creating a plan for using the chunk of time it takes you to drive from your house to your office.

Are you finding it difficult to get out of bed early? How about using the same tune for both your calls and your alarm.

Regardless of whatever situation you may find yourself, there is always a way of escape. You only have to plan for it before you have a need for it.