Leveraging Leadership
Are you ready to up your leadership game? Tune in to Leveraging Leadership, where Chiefs of Staff, executives, and business professionals find the tools, strategies, and insights they need to excel. Hosted by Emily Sander, a C-suite executive turned leadership coach, this podcast delivers practical and tactical takeaways every week.
Whether you're tackling tough conversations, fine-tuning your KPIs, or mastering delegation, this show offers new perspectives and actionable advice to help you feel confident and thrive in your role.
Each Monday, enjoy interviews with leaders from diverse fields—primarily business, but also from military, politics, and higher education. Every Wednesday, catch a solo episode where Emily shares concise, actionable insights on a specific topic you can apply immediately.
If you appreciate relatable, informal conversations that pack a punch with no fluff, you’re in the right place. While especially valuable for Chiefs of Staff and their Principals, the insights are useful for any leader aiming to grow.
Don’t miss your chance to advance as a leader.
Leveraging Leadership
Designing the SYSTEM for Achieving Your Goals (Part 3)
Emily Sander explains how to set up systems that make it easier to stick to New Year's goals, like laying out workout clothes by the door or using food tracking apps with preloaded meals. She shares personal examples, including her efforts to improve sleep by using an OURA ring and building an evening routine, and gives tips on matching goal-setting approaches to your personality and the type of goal. The focus is on making the process work for you, so healthy habits and results come naturally.
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Want help building systems that actually support your goals? Book a clarity call w/ Emily here.
Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.
Time Stamps:
00:29 Building a System for Success
01:06 Knowing Yourself and Your Goals
03:00 Tactical Tips for Weight Loss
04:37 Tracking Progress and Adjusting Systems
07:19 Personal Example: Improving Sleep
13:58 Conclusion: Designing Systems for Inevitable Success
All right, part three of setting good New Year's resolutions or goals. This one is about building a system or designing a system that makes it easier for you to do the thing you wanna do than not. So if you can build the system and structure where it just kind of carries you through where it's like, okay, I'm, I'm almost on these train tracks and I can derail myself if I really try, but my default is just to move through this. And yes, I'm doing all the actions and building the habits that I want. And it's easier for me to do that than it is for me to not do that. Avoid that, get off track with it. So you build the process, build the system in that way. The first part of this is knowing a bit about yourself. So let's take the classic example for New Year's of like losing weight. So knowing yourself. An example of that would be, are you someone who is better with incremental progress? So let me take some baby steps and just ease my way in, and that way I'll see progress. And that way I'll be able to kind of wade into the pool, like toes, ankles, knees. Okay, now I'm gonna kind of go waist deep type of thing, or. Are you someone who's like, Emily, if I'm gonna do it, I need it to be all in or all off. So in this example, it might be I'm gonna oma, so one meal a day, I'm gonna eat one meal a day. It might be intermittent fasting. I have a, I know someone who literally, when they wanna lose weight, they do not eat for 24 to 36 hours. And that works for him. That works great. He's like, Emily, if I'm busy, I don't even notice, I, I forget to eat. I, on the other hand, if I didn't eat for 36 hours, I would be so hangry and so unpleasant to be around, and I would feel lightheaded in all these things. I've tried it and it just doesn't work for me. Okay. So knowing a bit about yourself in that way, you also wanna know a bit about the goal that you're dealing with or the intention that you're talking about. So if you're talking about losing weight, that's one type of goal. If you're talking about, um. Something like communication or executive presence, that's another type of goal. If you're talking about a very technical skill, I wanna learn this hard skill or have this certification or go through this, uh, education program or whatnot, that's slightly different. So the two big pieces there are know yourself and know how you're kind of built up, and then know and be aware of what type of goal that you're dealing with. Then. Once you have those two pieces in place, then you can architect the system and design the system to just move you through to the goal and outcome that you want. So let's talk tactical and practical things. Let's take the losing weight example since I'm on that already. If you, the classic is, put your workout closed by the door. If you want to go walking or running in the morning. Is it easier to have your clothes ready? And not have to think about that when you roll outta bed and you just put on your clothes and just step outside. That could be, that could be a great goal to make it easier to do the thing than not do the thing. If I gotta, like, I gotta look for my workout clothes. Is it cold outside? Is it warm outside? Didn't check the forecast last night. I gotta go dig for it. It's super warm in my bed. Versus, I see my clothes right there, they're right by the door. I'm gonna do this. It could be, you know, if accountability is your thing and a workout partner, like if, if Sheila's there, then I'm gonna be there. Like Sheila's, I can't leave her hanging, so I'm gonna go and meet her for a walk outside. Um, it could be like on those, uh, food tracking apps, those calorie tracking apps, a lot of them now, by the way, have like AI and you can like voice note what you're eating or you can take a picture of it and it does it for you. a lot of them too, you can preload your meals. So if you have the same thing for breakfast every day, or you tend to have the same thing for lunch, many days of the week, you can preload those in there and you can build your week. And so you like don't have to do anything. You can design the system where, oh, like it's literally. Already done. My meal is already logged. Now if you happen to eat something different, you can go in and change it, but if you preload that thing, that's the epitome of, like, I, I've already done it. I've literally already done it, so it doesn't take any effort. So build that process. another thing here, like a little side note, is. In terms of tracking your goals, know yourself as well. So if you're like, I wanna look at something every day'cause I wanna see progress, or I wanna get the data points, or I wanna get the trend every day, and that's what helps you stay on point. Cool. If you're like, that would drive me insane. That would make me like obsessive compulsive in a bad way and also make me overthink every little thing I'm doing that would stress me out. Maybe it's a weekly check-in. Maybe it's a monthly check-in, whatever works for you, whatever's gonna have that system that is best suited to you and is best, like, okay, I am calm and intentional. I'm not freaking out, but I am deliberate about what I'm doing and I'm deliberately taking some steps towards this goal. And another part of designing this system and also understanding what kind of goal you're working with is saying, okay, I have a very definitive, very concrete, very, empirically measurable. Outcome that I'm going for. So in 12 months I wanna lose this many pounds, and then you can reverse engineer quarter by quarter or month by month. Okay, well, where do I need to be at by July if I wanna lose X amount of pounds by December 31st? And you can work that plan and engineer that plan if you have a goal that's more open-ended like, um. An example might be, I wanna be more open in my communication, maybe more open-minded or open to new ideas or open to what someone is going to say without pre-judging it or assuming what they're gonna say. Uh, you can probably get a proxy measure in there, like scale of one to 10 about how you're. If you feel like you're showing up, maybe do a survey about how other people are perceiving it. But it might be, more of you are being deliberate about becoming the person you wanna become and then external things. Are drawn to you, or maybe you develop yourself personal development and you put in the reps and you build the process. But it's more like, I'm doing this internally and then I wanna see what unfolds. Certain things will start to unfold. I don't know what they are yet, so I've gotta wait. Trust the process and oh, okay. That thing just opened up. A new type of conversation just opened up because I was more open. Now I'm in this conversation with this person'cause this person referred me over here or whatever. Or this store opened, this opportunity presented itself. Okay, so you just take it day by day, week by week, but you watch for things to unfold and you put the reps in internally. So a another aspect of what types of goal. Uh, are you working with? And then also just knowing the process can lend itself to whatever type of goal you're working with. Okay, so lemme just give you a personal example that might tie in some of these components we've talked about. So one of my intentions or goals for the new year is to become a better sleeper. And I have had insomnia since I was like a teenager. And college was awful. I couldn't sleep very well. All um, and sleep helps. Everything. And intuitively we know this, right? We wake up tired, our like head hurts, and sometimes our muscles ache and I don't know about you, but when I don't get sleep, I'm not the most cheery person to be around at certain times for other people. So, uh, conversely, when you do get sleep, you're like, ah, okay. I feel rested, I feel rejuvenated, I feel energetic, like I can take on the world. You have a project, you have an initiative, you have a problem. Like, I'm gonna solve that for you today. So. Sleep helps everything, decision making, interactions, relationships, creativity, et cetera, et cetera. So sleep. I was like, Ooh, this is a really high leverage point. The ROII get for good sleep is extremely high. So let me put this, at the top of my list and prioritize this as one of my goals into the new year. And so I, the system, I'm, I am, I've built and I'm currently still building and tweaking is as follows. So first of all, I. Research some books to read on sleep. And I found that I cannot listen to them as I'm going to sleep.'cause that's way too meta and way too like try to sleep and here's some tactics while I'm trying to sleep and dah, dah, dah. So I had to do it. I had to read those at a different time. But usually I listen to an audio book or some sort of kind of. calming thing when I go to sleep. Quick tip there. Listen to an audio book that you really like, but you already know, you already have read or listened to, and that way your brain's not trying to take in new information. It's just enjoying a nice story that you, that you like. so got some books and have worked my way through many of those, just getting some data points and research. Um, in this field I also got an an aura ring. So I'm wearing that now. You can see it if you're watching the video. And I basically did some research and said, okay, out of all these wearables, which one has the best in class for sleep data and sleep tracking. And there's lots of things that do this Apple Watch and all these different ones. But Aura Ring was good for me'cause it seemed to have, um, the most components due to sleep. the biggest thing is I actually. Like wearing a, a normal watch, like a regular, like old school analog watch. And so the ring actually worked better for me in that sense as well. And the thing I wanted to do, I've worn a Fitbit in the past, and the thing that I would, um, I'm trying to do differently, I am doing differently now, is I'm not trying to get a good sleep score. Like, yes, I got a good sleep score. No, I got a horrible sleep score. Now my day is shot. It's more about I want information. I want some data. I wanna be able to make informed decisions around how I tweak things here and there. the one thing about Aura that I'm finding is it will kind of give you prompts on like, Hey, did you eat a late meal? Or, did you do something stressful or it kind of measures these different things and you can, create correlations between different elements. So I'm like, okay, let me just like be a scientist or like a detective here and figure out for me and my body and my schedule and what I have in my life right now. What helps me sleep better and what prevents that or, uh, uh, decreases the likelihood that I will sleep well and just get those things in place. by the way, if you struggle with insomnia or anything sleep related, I would recommend the sleep book by Dr. Guy Meadows. in short, it basically says a lot of people overly stress themselves with sleep routines and wind downs and no blue light and no eating in this period of window of time before you go to sleep. And they freak out, have to have their night mask, and have to have it dark and cool and blah, blah, blah. And he's like. Just sleep like your body knows how to sleep and all these things are ratcheting up. The stress just sleep. And even if you are not sleeping, but you're laying in bed, just tell yourself and say that I'm getting some really good rest right now. My body is getting really good rest, and I found that book to be. Extremely useful for me. Just Oh, okay. As I read through these things, I was like, I've done that, I've done that. I've tried that. Yep. That didn't work either. And taking those things almost all off the plate and just saying, just go to sleep. And if you happen to not sleep that night. Instead of, looking at the clock, you know, I'm gonna be so tired tomorrow and I have these meetings, and should I take like a, you know, a little Unisom over the counter sleeping pill? Yes or no? Is it too late in the night to do that? Just, I'm getting really good rest. I'm getting some really good rest right now, and that's helped me tremendously. so just learning about things, uh, that happened to work for me. there's other great books out there that might have information or just like, oh. Oh, that perspective's really helpful for me. For you. Um, personally, the, uh, an adjacent goal to this is, I wanna start waking up a little bit earlier because for me, I have certain things that I wanna get done in the morning before my official, like core day, core business day starts. And I just feel so good when I do that. I feel like it's done. I did it well. I wasn't rushed. I did it on my own time, in my own way. And I love, love, love when I'm able to do that. And, The incremental step that I'm putting in place now is, hey, to get up earlier, you have to go to sleep earlier. and this seems intuitive, but it took me a while to actually come to that conclusion like, yeah, yeah, it's called math Emily. If you want a certain hour, certain number of hours to sleep and you wake up at this time, you can do some math and figure out what time you have to go to bed in order to get the seven to eight hours that are ideal for me. So instead of like, again, stressing out and putting so much pressure on myself for the morning routine and forcing yourself, you're outta bed, how can you force yourself out of bed? Which sounds awful. It's okay. How do I build a evening routine where I just start my, my wind down routine? I start getting ready for bed, which takes about an hour at a certain time, and I'm like, oh. Okay. Like that doesn't seem as pressure filled for me. For some reason. It doesn't seem as like I have to force myself to do this. It's like, nope. Generally around this time I'm gonna start getting ready for bed and I'm actually tracking this in an app.'cause it's building the habit of like, okay, I need to start building a new habit in the evening. Then my body will naturally wanna get up a little bit earlier if it goes to bed earlier. So this is just a personal example. You can obviously extrapolate this to some other things that you're doing if these aren't your specific goals. But I just wanted to share that in terms of building a system and making it easier for me to do something versus not, and also knowing myself and what works for me, and then knowing what type of goal that I'm working with. So again, it's about designing that system so it'll carry you, and it's almost like, think about it this way. It's almost like if you set up the system, right, the end goals or the outcomes will be inevitable, consequences of your system. When like I build this system and I put the reps in and I fine tune it, and I tweak it, and I'm consistent and so left and right. I am achieving these external goals. I'm accomplishing this and I'm achieving that, and I met that end goal and that outcome. But front and center is what's the system? How do I architect this to have the results I want? How do I architect this to become the person that I wanna become and have doors open for me? So if you keep that in mind and have that approach, I think you will. I think you will do well in your career and in your life. So hopefully some of this has been helpful and I will catch you next week on leveraging leadership.