Systems Beat Willpower: the quiet secrets of high performance. Do less hard - Accomplish more awesome.

If doing the “right thing” still feels like a daily arm wrestle, you don’t need a pep talk - you need better systems.  

Today we dig into systems that make good choices easy and consistent, drawing on Angela Duckworth’s research on grit and practical behavior change to show how environment, routines, and scheduling can carry the load so willpower doesn’t have to.  

We start with a simple truth: humans, young and old, choose the path of least resistance.  

Phones win when they’re within reach. Late nights win when nothing reminds us to stop. Instead of blaming discipline, we rewire the setup. You’ll hear practical examples: a bedtime cue that ends nightly debates, frictionless food prep like pre-boiled eggs and pre-loaded protein shakers, and a weekly shopping and planning loop that removes decision fatigue. These aren’t hacks; they’re scaffolds that keep your values front and center on the busiest days.  

Then we zoom out to time and energy.  

Most of us hit a predictable early afternoon slump. Rather than fight biology, we protect morning peak hours for deep work and tough thinking, move admin to the dip, and leave room to finish strong later. We also share a simple weekly outcome planning system: define what success looks like by Friday, block it on the calendar, cancel what doesn’t serve the target, and stack those wins week after week.   

By the end, you’ll have a blueprint to make progress automatic: design your environment, align your schedule with your rhythms, and let systems do the heavy lifting.  

If you’re ready to stop grinding and start gliding, press play. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.  

Transcript

Why Systems Beat Willpower

Angela Duckworth On Environment Design

Make Sleep Easy With Triggers

Food Systems That Remove Discipline

Systems to Do More with Less

Smarter Scheduling Around Biology

Weekly Outcome Planning For Business

Coaching As A System Builder

Recap And Call To Share

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome back to Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in change, transformation, personal and collective growth, more positive impact, and just figuring out how to unlock more of our human potential every day. Every day, use more of it to create the most amazing life experience for ourselves, creating great things in the world that improve other people's lives and just make the world go around. Today, guys, we are talking about one of my favorite topics to talk about systems over willpower. By the end of this podcast, you might reconsider a lot of the things that you feel are hard and you need to get disciplined about, from your lifestyle to your work ethic to just simply getting more work done. How these podcasts usually come to be just a little bit of an insider view in my process of creation. Usually I read things, I coach my clients, obviously, I talk to people, I live my life. And then during this conversation or while reading, there is gonna be a moment of this aha. I didn't know that people looked at it differently, or uh, when I'm reading something in the book. I didn't know that you could look at the world or a specific concept in the world in this way. And then I think in order to process better and include it into my new process of upgraded process of thinking, decision making, and doing, then I write about it, I talk about it, I create content, and then think about how I can use this knowledge in my life to make better outcomes, whatever that means, happen. So this podcast was a was a the compilation of things. Yesterday I was, I think that was the last trigger, I was listening to Angela Dackworth. If you don't know who Angela Dackworth is, she is a very prominent scientist based in the US, I think Penn University, and she studied, she dedicated her life's work to studying willpower and Greet. She wrote a book with this title Greet, uh, one of the most popular book on the subject of perseverance, like how it works, why it works, what we need to do to do it better, and when it's not necessarily time to persevere, but maybe pivot. So Angela Dackworth has her Instagram, and on her Instagram, she shared this short clip when she was talking about kids at school preferring using their phones more often than, let's say, listening to their teacher teaching them math or other demanding subject or difficult, complex things. And she was saying about this fact that we shouldn't be expecting kids to be more will-powered, if you'd like, than adults and choose something hard and complex and uncomfortable, like learning math, which you don't understand, over something super easy, like easy to consume, videos or um whatever you know, the thing that kids are consuming on their phones. So she was saying we shouldn't be asking for kids to do this impossible thing that even we adults can't really do. Like otherwise, people wouldn't say, like adults wouldn't say, Oh, you know, I struggle with managing my social media or or I overwatch Netflix or something else. We wouldn't struggle with that ourselves. So why are we requiring our kids to do that? Instead, we need to create the environment where the right behavior is easy, is simple, is a norm. Like, for example, leaving your phone in a probably a lot of schools already do that in a special place so kids don't worry about looking at their phone. Or maybe you leave your phone for the day, you enter school and you're without the phone there, and you use some other ways to work with technology that you know are not that addictive and are well managed, instead of requiring kids to train their willpower. And actually, before that, a couple of days before that, I listened to Angela Dackworth on a podcast of Katie Milkman, who does and did a lot of work around behavioral, how to change behavior, especially consistently and at scale. Also, very prominent scientist who dedicated her life's work to behavior change and these two actually good friends. And so Angela Dackworth was on the pod was on the podcast of Katie Milkman, and there she was also saying the same thing. You know, she she was saying people think that I must be like this uh very will-powered person to you know do this great work and do other things, but actually, she said, I just create systems that help me to do the thing that I need to do, help me to make it easier. Like, for example, she shared that she often would struggle to before to go to bed on time, even though she knew that you know good rest is important and it helps you to do your best work and feel great and it's great for health, etc. But she would just get carried away with things in life, email, etc. And she said, Well, I programmed my Alexa, you know, this uh dot or echo dot by Amazon to tell me every time at 9 p.m., Angela, it's time for bed. And she she said that your you know, your whole whole family has like makes fun of her often, but she says it works for me. It reminds me that uh, you know, it's time, and I d decided in advance that I'm gonna prioritize sleep. And so she would then wrap things up and go to bed. Right. So that is her system for sleep, and that's what prompted this whole podcast that is about systems that make things that you know you wanna do, that you gotta do, that you truly, again, like committed to doing, and yet somehow you fail to do that. Like one of the things yesterday or the day before yesterday, I was talking to a client and we were working on his uh protein intake, how to get more protein in his meals. And he was just we were talking about his breakfast, and he shared a picture where there were eggs, some fruit, vegetables, uh protein shake. And he said, Well, you know, it uh doesn't require much time or cooking at all. Once I decide to do that, I just boil eggs and it takes uh you know under 10 minutes while I'm preparing my fruit, veg, etc. And then I said, Well, eggs, you actually don't have to cook every day at all. I just pre-boil mine for the whole week ahead. And he said, Well, you know, I didn't actually think about that. That makes things even easier, especially on the busy days when I can just, you know, grab stuff with me or eat on the goal. You know, sometimes those things happen, sometimes more often than we'd like to. And then he went even further. He looked up this recipe when you put boiled eggs into this like soy sauce of some sort, and the eggs stay there, and when you scoop them out, they are just so delicious. But anyhow, he boiled a huge bunch of them. Uh, so that is another system. And a lot of people would ask me, or when my clients come to me, they think that I'll teach them how to be super disciplined about food or exercise. Instead, the whole process, we are learning how to build better systems, how to make things that they want to do easy to do in their life. Not in my idea for their life. I don't tell them what to prioritize, how to live their life. I'm helping them to figure out a way to combine the way they like living their life with the other things that they want to do for their health, fitness, or their productivity and high performance. And it's all about again helping them to see that they just don't have the right systems. It has nothing to do with their willpower, it has nothing to do with how much time they have. There is always a way to make the right things happen if you focus on building the right systems. In fact, when you see someone doing seemingly a hard thing consistently, you might think, oh, they might be disciplined. But actually, from my experience, learning from a lot, a lot of high performers, it's not the willpower or discipline. They designed the systems that help them to do the right thing on autopilot consistently. You know, the definition of the system, one of the definitions of the systems is a set of processes or the set of uh behaviors or steps that are that can that create a whole process which usually delivers this consistent results much faster with less energy, willpower, or uh spending other resources, right? So do you have a system for things that you need to run consistently? And the reason why it's important because life will always challenge you. There are gonna be, especially if you're an ambitious person trying to make certain things, build certain things, you know, out of thin air almost. You need to embrace daily challenges which are unpredictable and will require a lot from you. So you need to build systems so you so the things that need to happen consistently, like your sleep, eating, or your energy levels, so they run on autopilot, so that your thinking, your decision making, your energy is then spent for things that matter. Taking a sip of water, I'm not an AI, so I do need to do those things. Uh so systems allow you to have resources to take on more without your health, mental resilience, emotions, the rest of your life suffering, right? So you can go through intense periods of work with no burning out or getting sick after or really compromising a lot of aspects of your life when you have systems in your life. And those systems can also be for relationships or for getting things done faster and easier without working more. Like, for example, another system that I'm sharing with you because a friend asked me about a post that I made about this what I call smarter scheduling, which I was very curious like how did it work and why did I decide to post about that? So the gist of it is our biology is designed that way, like as long as you are a human living on this earth, you are designed this way. You have a circadian rhythm, the sleep awake cycle, which is governed by the sun uh cycle on earth and many other things, and also your biology. And so in the middle of the day, somewhere between one and four, if you're a super early bird like myself, might be somewhere between 12 and 3. But somewhere in that time, again for majority of people, it's between one and four, your uh brain naturally switches gears, your cognitive uh performance declines, your decision making worsens, you are not that focused, you are sleepier, especially if you didn't have good night's sleep or ate a heavy lunch, that's why heavy lunches are not recommended. That's gonna be even worse, and that's where people start munching on things or drinking coffee to bring that up. But actually, would what would be a lot smarter is to schedule your essential tasks before that period and after that period, the first part of the day for early birds usually is the most productive ones. Some people who are genetically wired to be night owls, there might be a later part of the day, but the middle, like that that middle part, it's actually good for nothing. So also try not to schedule your important medical procedures or other important things with other people because they are also people and they follow the same trajectory. Judges, for example, make the worst decisions least favorable to you usually or during that time. So that time is good for things like napping or doing emails or doing any errands, or you know, even if you want to go and work out or take a break, that is the time well spent for that, and then you do a lot better work in the morning and in the later afternoon, again, especially in the first few hours of your of your day, where you'll deliver more of the work, you're gonna do it with less mistakes, you're gonna do it faster, and a lot of things are gonna come together into in your mind a lot clearer. And where a lot of people get a trunk with high performers, I noticed that is that they schedule a lot of non-essential meetings in the morning or just stuff of what like with email. No, actually, aligned with your biology, you need to do your most essential work and allow your team and your home company perhaps to do their most essential work in the mornings. Do not schedule those meetings in the mornings, and then do the maintenance stuff, the meetings that are not again the most essential, do that in the middle of the day and then allow people also to finish off strong. If it's an important meeting, it's a negotiation, it thinks that you really need to think through things, then those meetings, yes, they are better for the morning when you are your sharpest, most positive, strongest, most willpower, just feeling good about your thing, things in work and also have your most energy and just sharper and go through things a lot faster. So that is another system. I call it smarter scheduling, and again, I work through that with a lot of my clients who are trying to do a lot of work, and again, and it's so very helpful because then you do work faster, and so instead of trying to push through in the afternoon and things really dragging out, you can do that same amount of work in either uh two acts less time or more, depending again on the task, on what you're doing, on how well you slept, etc. Sometimes afternoons are just not possible to do anything. So that is another system uh that uh I share with each of my clients. So we talked a system for food, we talk around the system for your business, your productivity uh for your productivity. Now let's talk about your business. Another th system is at the beginning of each week, it's more for again business or getting uh some project shipped. At the beginning of the week, you ask yourself, and this process is also a system, you ask yourself, what will success look like for me this week? What needs to happen? And then you write it down and you ask yourself, how do I need to prioritize my schedule to give this objective more chance to happen? And then you schedule things accordingly, things you know, certain things you you boot away, certain things you cancel, certain things again, also take into consideration the smarter scheduling system as well, and you put stuff in order, and that is another system for having more chances to get to the goals, the outcomes that you want at the end of the week. And when you you know stack this week, stack this week week after week after week for the whole year. What is it like 54 weeks or something? It's gonna produce tremendous, tremendous result and results and momentum. Now, not everything is gonna be perfect, but you are so much more likely to hit like your stride and and find breakthroughs. So that is another system that I work on with all of my clients when we start working together. And again, uh like the whole process of coaching, yes, accountability is also a huge part of coaching. You're gonna feel more up for a challenge, more disciplined to do things because you just know someone like your coach who you pay to gonna be waiting for you each week, asking about you know the things that you said you want to commit. So that also works. But what works uh equally important is the coach helping you to create systems in the areas of your life or your business or your relationships where you struggle, and that's probably the biggest value in coaching. Coach helps you create the systems that you lack to make things that are needed to happen on autopilot happen consistently. And also, the coach usually has some domain specific knowledge which you might not have, which helps you to create even better systems that you by yourself wouldn't be able to create just because you lack the knowledge or understanding. Maybe you didn't know that your biology naturally dips and your brain works the worst in the afternoon. So now you know, build a system around that. And uh on that note, we're gonna conclude our podcast systems over willpower. We started our conversation with talking about the work of Angela Duckworth, one of the top researchers in the world on greed and willpower, and how she promotes advertises in all of your content, systems over willpower. Train your willpower less, create systems that help you do what you want to do. We have more or less willpower discipline in different arenas. So where you have the least discipline, you need the most systems, and you need your willpower for other challenges that life is gonna throw at you. So we started there. We then talked about systems for food, like boiling your eggs, cooking your carbs. I also shop once a week. I plan all of my meals and all of my workouts once a week, and then I just don't think about that. It just happens. I have my shaker bottle preloaded with protein powder that I can just put in my bag and be on my way for the whole day, knowing I'm gonna be hitting my protein targets no matter freaking what. So we talked about systems for smarter scheduling, how to schedule the tasks so you get to accomplish more faster and of better quality with a less struggle. And we talked about systems for hitting more business goals, so whatever goals you're trying to hit by simply asking yourself at the beginning of the week, what it is that I want to achieve, and how can I change my schedule to give myself a better chance to do just that. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed my solo 100% human episode uh today. Don't forget to share this podcast episode with at least one other human who wants to do their absolute best and might be lacking some of the systems that we talked about today. So let's change the world together. And till next time, keep changing, keep growing, and keep being your best self, or at least giving it an honest try.