One growth system that actually works

I used to be a systems junkie.

A system for my work, a process for planning my life, a protocol for my health.

I used to read the book, follow the model, listen to some new guru on how to do the thing best or reach the goal in a way that was absolutely certain.

None of it worked every time, and I realized I have my own strengths, my own biology, my own personal history and my own lived experience that doesn’t fit inside of someone else’s system.

The problem was thinking someone else’s path would work for me.

This is what happens:

The same person applies 3 different systems to a goal and gets 3 wildly different paths to success.

System A → “SMART goals. Be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound.”

System B → “Forget SMART. Use OKRs. Moonshot objectives tied to key results.”

System C → “Forget OKRs. Use Atomic Habits. Small habits, stacked daily.”

Same dream. Same starting point. Completely different conclusions.

No wonder 92% of people never reach a meaningful goal in their lifetime.

Each system is operating from its own made-up playbook.

The productivity guy thinks it’s a time problem.

The habit guy thinks it’s a behaviour problem.

The business guy has an 8 step formula for every possible fix.

But none of them work 100% of the time.

And none of them take into account the actual source of every idea, goal and action you’ve ever had:

Your consciousness.

You’re not a spreadsheet, or a Notion database, or a Monday.com board.

You’re not a machine or a nicely organized acronym. You, yourself, are a living system.

Your biology is the hardware. Your energy, hormones, nervous system.

Your psychology is the software. Your beliefs, emotions, thought patterns

Your social world is the app store, full of relationships, cultural influences and environments that either drain you, or power your focus.

And your consciousness is the developer behind all of it.

We are programmed to think that we can improve things by downloading new apps. New frameworks, new routines, new strategies.

But the real upgrade happens when you realize you can rewrite the code just by being more aware.

I get it, this is different, but think about it.

Consciousness is the thing that watches over it all.

It’s the quiet observer that sees your mind obsess, your emotions react, your body tighten, and your environment influence you.

It’s not your thoughts. It’s the awareness of your thoughts, as Ekhart Tole would say.

It’s not your motivation. It’s the thing that notices when your motivation comes and goes.

It’s the part of you that can pause between impulse and action and ask, “is this really mine? Or is this something I’ve been conditioned to chase?”

When you tap into that awareness, everything changes.

You start to see the system that’s already running inside you.

Think of it like a garden.

Your biology is the soil.

Your psychology is the seed.

Your relationships and environment are the ecosystem that feed or drain your growth.

And your consciousness is the sun.

The sun doesn’t force anything to grow. It simply shines, and everything that is aligned with it grows naturally.

In our pursuit of goals and change, we name, label, and judge everything.

This worked, that failed, this was good, that was bad.

It’s our automatic mind at work.

Awareness is how we debug the system.

When you notice the moment between the urge to name and judge something before you react, you begin to change the system.

You stop reacting from fear, ego, or control.

You start creating from clarity.

Awareness lets you step outside your thoughts, see the pattern, and rewrite it.

This is how we collaborate with consciousness to shape our growth as a human. Not through effort, but through attention.

It’s the difference between trying to control every outcome and simply becoming the kind of person who acts in alignment with what they are observing as true, and become aware of what is in the way of that.

This is actually harder to accomplish than simply trying out a new tool, because it’s unique to you and there is no roadmap for it even though the guru’s continue to sell their roadmaps with certainty.

The ones that acknowledge this uncertainty help you explore, adapt and align your life and your goals to what matters in real-time.

What matters most shifts as life shifts, as seasons change and needs evolve.

There’s no perfect template for that.

There’s no single system that works for everyone. Because no one system can account for who you are, uniquely.

You are the system.

🤙

Much Love,

Cory Firth
Creator of One Minute Weekend

Let’s work together!