The RAG System

raise up your hand if you have some sort

of idea

on what you want to achieve

notice how most of us have some sort of

idea in what we want to achieve

dreams as many would say the most

remarkable thing about a dream is that

it can be

anything you want from becoming a pilot

to a singer

or just even becoming good at a skill

like painting

the thing with dreams though is that

they don’t involve much more than a few

thoughts in your head

you don’t have to think about and act on

how to achieve those dreams

however what i’m telling you today is

not about dreaming

it’s about recognizing that you have a

goal or multiple goals and learning how

to achieve those through smaller steps

this year like for many students my

exams had gotten cancelled

which meant that i had a lot of free

time but nothing really to do

the time to reflect actually benefited

me quite well as i had more time to

realize how i was spending my days a lot

of you might be thinking

well yeah that’s how i felt too the

story isn’t uncommon

we had all gotten so constantly fixated

on achieving our day-to-day tasks and

goals and priorities and projects

that we actually forgot to plan what we

were doing leading to

demotivation and procrastination for

many cases

i thought about this quite a lot during

quarantine and realize that it actually

isn’t that hard to maximize your time to

increase the best possible

efficiency that you can and so

to solve this i came up with a simple

system and it came

up to three simple aspects that we can

all achieve it through

reflection action and grit the rag

system

so let’s start with the first aspect of

the rag system

reflection so when faced with the

supposedly simple concept of

work hard to achieve your dreams it can

be confusing where to start

what do you work hard on how many hours

you have to spend on the goal

how do you manage it without

compromising other vital activities in

your life

well according to mit the process of

reflection

allows us to develop our understanding

more deeply and to make our intuitive

knowledge

more shareable with others it provides

us the opportunity

to take a step back and look at what our

work means to us in our communities

one very very very extremely important

thing that must be remembered

is that reflection should never ever be

thought of as a way to process negative

views about yourself

no one is a complete negative entity

likewise the way we

reflect should be mindful and neutral

not self-hating are the extreme opposite

so let’s take a look at this diagram on

the far left we can see that the first

aspect of reflection is

imagination we all have those gut

feelings or thoughts inside our head

that allow us to consider

possible alternatives to whatever

current situation we are in

for example this can come through

meditation writing reading journaling

painting and a variety of other factors

and these allow us to open our mind to

consider potential alternatives to

whatever situation we are currently in

and to come to a reasonable and mutual

conclusion about the things that we need

to change in our lives

now this brings us to realization the

second part of reflection

as now we are aware that there is

something that needs to be changed to

make our lives more

simple or uncomplicated the realization

can come from anywhere the meditation

the self-help books or even

conversations with other people

here’s a personal example of mine i

actually didn’t realize that

overthinking was a problem of mine until

i talked to my parents about what was

bothering me

after talking to them i realized that

many of my problems were quite small and

unchangeable

essentially it was a simple neutral

conversation that led to a

realization i know some of you might not

be too comfortable or

might be afraid of talking about your

personal problems to other people

however you know what you should not be

as carol d rift states

that sustaining or deepening your

well-being through times of adversity

which is something that can be done

through reflection

through conversations with other people

allows us to have greater health

benefits

thereby underscoring greater benefits of

eudemonia

a greek word for happiness so now that

brings us to the last part of reflection

goal setting and prioritization

essentially this is where we set up a

pyramid of goals based on size and

importance

well goal setting is a critical process

in our lives how

relevant or important each goal is can

vary so that’s why i use this goal

pyramid to help me structure my goals

it’s a way of

putting priorities onto paper

so as we can see that at the bottom of

the pyramid we have the small goals so

some of these goals are we are tasks

that we achieve every day

for example brushing your teeth being

social and a variety of other smaller

goals like writing paragraphs of essays

are things that we achieve every day and

we need to achieve those before we can

achieve the larger or main goals

now i’ll give you an example that you’ll

probably relate to

during quarantine many of you might have

found that you weren’t being as

productive as you would have liked

and might have even said something

around the lines of i need to get back

into a proper routine

now this realization brought us to our

main goal of getting into a proper

routine

now a routine is something that is

practiced continuously

for a long period of time and can lead

to habits

and habits are things that are changed

over the course of approximately two to

three weeks

so there we have established a clear

time frame of planning already

establishing a clear time frame can help

to allow

on how quickly you need to achieve your

goals

and setting a reasonable timeline helps

you understand

how what you need to achieve as well as

avoiding procrastination

now let’s look at the small goals so

these are the smallest parts

that we need to achieve before we can

achieve the larger or main goals

so referring back to the main example of

getting into a proper routine

some of these goals may include not

drinking coffee past 5 pm to refrain

from staying up later than needed

or maybe to set alarms to make sure that

you’re aware of the time

essentially once again these goals need

to be achieved before we can achieve the

larger or main goals

so next we do have the larger middle

goals so these goals

are examples of more complex smaller

goals but

nowhere near as close to the main goal

that we wish to achieve

referring back to the example a middle

goal that we can achieve through this

is going to bed at 10 pm which can be

achieved by refraining

from drinking coffee past 5 pm our

smaller goal

now see this is reflection but the thing

is

if you don’t act on what you do it will

constantly say

as reflection and it will only stay as

prioritization and

other aspects of reflection so you need

to actually act on what you do

in order for your goals to be set in

motion as sean rochelle once said

doing nothing is nothing so while the

reflection through self-help books and

other factors can help you

figure out what you need to be doing

actually doing it is

just as important so let’s talk about

why action is so important

action for one allows us to set the plan

in motion

if you have a plan but don’t actually

act on your plan it will just be

information

the self-help books the meditation the

conversations with your friends your

family your parents and even

i give you will only get you so far

but if you don’t actually act on this

then it will only stay as the

information

for example if you read a self-help book

on carrying stress through constant

meditation but never actually meditate

then your stress will magically

disappear just because you read the book

you actually have to act on it to make

sure that it is

implemented in your life and the next

reason why action is so crucial

is because it allows you to really

understand what is vital

for you to achieve in your life so it

allows you to realistically

understand what you need to be doing

more of for example if we refer back to

the main goal

maybe we thought that in order to get

back into a proper routine

we had to spend three hours exercising

per day

but through action we realized we

weren’t fit enough to do that

so action allows you to realistically

understand where you need to be spending

more time

and more effort the next reason action

is so important

is because it allows you to physically

see your progress

physically seeing your progress is one

of the most rewarding things that one

can experience

it allows you to see where you are in

terms of your goals and scientifically

it allows you to increase the dopamine

and serotonin in your brain

motivating you to continue implementing

your goals

which brings me to the last part of why

action is so important

as we continue implementing our goals

consistently and continuously

this begins to lead to habit now habit

begins to become ingrained in our mind

so once this isn’t great in our mind it

becomes a lot easier to continue

implementing

further goals to achieve the larger goal

for example having an organized desk

space or task area can aid in motivating

this action

another example could be having a simple

to do list

and that essentially is what regular

people do

to motivate the action so effective

action means you prepare

and do which brings me to the last part

of the rag system

grit now grit may be an unfamiliar word

to some

so i’ll tell you what it is in the

shortest possible way

grit was a concept that was created by

angela duckworth

and according to her grit is having

passion and perseverance

grit is having stamina it is sticking

with your long-term goals

grit is living life like it’s a marathon

and not a sprint

although this is a relatively new factor

that can lead to efficiency and success

there are some very strong and probable

correlations between what makes a

grittier person

versus what makes a not so gritty person

and you’re probably wondering well

what is the easiest way to achieve grit

through and

one concept that we can strongly relate

it to was this concept that was

developed by carol dweck at stanford

university

now dwight tested this theory with math

classes at fisk elementary school

and the results prove that motivation

and achievement through positive

reinforcement and positive action

can greatly aid into allowing a person

to have a longer term

impact in terms of achieving a greater

state and

the realization that talent and

achievement is malleable

as well as our brains neurons being

quite plastic can mean so much for your

overall development

now while this is a strong concept that

we can relate

to grit there are other strong

characteristics and attributes of a

person

that we can also relate it to so

courage and the ability to manage

failure is the first characteristic that

we can relate it to

so before i created this system i

realized that i wasn’t handling failure

as well as i thought i was

allowing me to realize this has allowed

me to understand that failure is

just a part of life and having the

courage and ability to continue

implementing new goals and do things

that scare you

are what the more gritty people

implement now in terms of the big five

personality traits

many have found that grittier

individuals are often more associated

with the personality trait of

conscientiousness

essentially what conscientious means is

more achievement oriented

now shown through lm huff these

individuals have shown to have better

proficiency

and an overall higher grit score the

next

attribute that that is compromised

when we look at it for grit is looking

back at the goal pyramid so when we look

back at the goal pyramid if we carry

this out through

action it can lead to quite a positive

impact

so it overall creates a better grit

personality adding to the contribution

of creating this factor

so the next point that we can relate it

to is resilience

resilience is a very strong

characteristic and zolin combines

optimism creativity and confidence to

create this characteristic

essentially if you’re only looking at

your goals as something for the short

term but not for the long term

then your potential achievements and

growths will only change for the short

term

but not for the long term and greater

people are those who

strive to achieve their goals for the

long term

now the last characteristic is something

that i struggled with quite a bit

there is a large difference between

excellence and perfection

excellence is simply doing the best you

can to the best of your ability

whilst perfection is really nearly

impossible to achieve

i was so fixated on doing all of my

tasks as perfectly as i could

which led to neglecting other tasks and

overall procrastination

essentially what you need to do is

strive for excellence not perfection

so you see you can really achieve

anything you want to if you want to

you reflect by imagining a scenario

realizing it needs a change

and setting goals and priorities related

to it you act by carrying

out through those plans and achieve a

grid state when you have a growth

mindset and implement characteristics

relevant to it

with those three steps followed in the

arrive order you can really do

anything you want within the bounds of

society so it’s time for you

to stop hitting snooze on what you want

to do what you want to achieve

your goals and what you know is

important for you to change in your life

it’s time for you to get out of bed into

the world knowing you have a way to

achieve your greatest possible potential

through three simple aspects reflection

action

grit the rag system