Managing Oneself

At the basis of improving your life, and pursuing a journey towards consistent peak performance, lies the idea of managing oneself. All self-improvement efforts rely on this core idea, which serves as one of the fundamental pillars for which all frameworks are built upon.

Whether your goal is to fix your finances, improve your health, relationships, social skills, productivity, etc., all are based on the idea that one can manage oneself to achieve goals. That an individual can make decisions that influence his or her life.

Managing oneself is an idea born from Peter Drucker’s book by the same name. Mr Drucker was a pioneer in the field of management science, coining the term “knowledge worker”, defining management by objectives and self-control and the idea of a “business thinker”. The core idea behind his work is the key topic of this article, and, specifically, how Selfmastered improves it.

Before continuing, let’s define what management is, and why it can be applied to individuals.

What is management?

Management, by definition, is the administration of an organization: coordinating the members that make the organization and pursuing different strategies to achieve proposed goals and objectives.

Developed as a science in the 20^th century, the study of management was born out of necessity to explain, categorize and organize the ever increasing complexity of the business world, led by new technologies, changes in laws, culture and organizations.

While management is born to be applied to organizations, Mr Drucker bridges the gap by shining light on the idea that management can also be applied to an individual and the individual’s goals.

In many aspects, an organization can be seen as a living and complex system. They’re made of interconnected parts that rely on each other, interact with their environment, they’re coordinated to achieve goals and to continue their existence.

Many techniques, concepts and ideas used by management science to improve productivity, goal setting, systems improvement, etc., can be applied to the individual and his or her own personal goals.

Managing oneself

When managing an organization, specific objectives and goals are defined, which management conveys to the organization’s members. The sequence of actions necessary to take to achieve said goals are planned, and feedback analysis monitors progress, evaluates and acts as a rewarding system.

The core idea behind Managing Oneself, by Peter Drucker, is that the individual can discover his or her strengths via feedback analysis, which is typically applied to improving businesses processes. Once the strengths and weaknesses of the individual are identified, Mr Drucker proposes to work on them, improving them and relying on them. Essentially, doubling down on our personal talents.

However, the idea of managing oneself goes beyond what Mr Drucker shines light on in his work. While applying feedback to improve one’s strengths is a core aspect of improving oneself, there are plenty more techniques and processes that are essential to the Selfmastered individual.

Take, for example, our articles on How to Algorithmize Peak Performance, Choosing a North Star Metric and How To Manage Your Energy For Peak Productivity. All three show an idea or a technique born out of management and applied to the individual. Aren’t they also an aspect of managing oneself?

There are plenty more examples and techniques that haven’t been discussed in Selfmastered yet that can also apply to the individual who plans to manage him or herself, like the Theory of Constraints, which is one way of incorporating Mr Drucker’s idea of feedback analysis to improve strengths.

Every system created to achieve goals has limiting factors, such as bottlenecks, chokepoints, critical actions, etc. According to the Theory of Constraints, a method to remove these limiting factors is to systematically improve them until they stop being a limiting factor.

According to leanproduction.com, “the Theory of Constraints takes a scientific to improvement. It hypothesizes that every complex system, including manufacturing processes, consists of multiple linked activities, one of which acts as a constraint upon the entire system (the weakest link in the chain).”

And this is only one example. Selfmastered goes a step further than managing oneself, as there are many pitfalls for management of the sake of management.

The pitfalls of self-management

Managing oneself has the danger of complacency. You can become an expert at feedback analysis, completely in tune with all of your processes, whether they are biological, habits, work, etc., and remain stagnant. Managing for the sake of managing is only being aware of what is, but it does not imply that one is growing, improving or moving anywhere.

There is also the pitfall that the individual spends too much time managing processes that have nothing to do with his or her goals. Processes that are managed for the fun of it, but make no sense in the overall plan, which is why it is important to choose a North Star Metric to keep the focus on the long term.

The main pitfall for all individuals aiming to become Selfmastered is the lack of focus, which leads to efforts being diffused by going everywhere, hence they reach nowhere.

Taking from Charlie Munger’s idea of Latticework of Mental Models, managing oneself is one model. There are many techniques, processes, and systems from the world of business that can be turned into mental models for the human decision, but they are loose, unconnected and all over the place.

If a mental model is a tool, there is no reason why your toolbox should have all the tools messed up, lost and randomly there for no reason. A good toolbox is one that helps you achieve your goals, with tools that serve a purpose and are easy to reach when needed. A toolbox with tools you don’t need and you carry around is dead weight.

Managing oneself is not enough, it does not imply improving oneself, nor mastering oneself. Selfmastered goes further.

How Selfmastered goes a step further

While Drucker’s ‘managing oneself’ focuses on one mental model, there are many techniques born from the science of management that can be turned into mental models for the individual to improve themselves. Selfmastered not only believes in managing oneself but also improving oneself, to the point of mastering oneself (hence the name SelfMastered). Let’s explain.

Selfmastered’s idea behind all of the mental models, techniques, heuristics and systems mentioned in our articles is to offer tools that make sense on their own, but also make sense when connected to the rest. They are both one and a whole.

Following the above-mentioned idea of a latticework of mental models, Selfmastered is creating a latticework of mental models that are connected to each other, with the goal of improving one’s life and providing for the tools for the individual to become a master of oneself. A toolbox with tools that match, are complementary and have a purpose.

And purpose, without all the popular wishy-washy fluff around it, is the key idea that gives a meaning to all of what you, the individual, does to improve yourself. One of the major pitfalls is the lack of focus, dispersing one’s efforts into many different actions, not going anywhere.

Which is why we created The Selfmastered Roadmap.

The Selfmastered Roadmap

The Selfmastered Roadmap is a latticework of connected mental models, which brings purpose and a clear progress to your journey towards self-mastery.

It is a system developed to achieve and maintain peak performance, providing for the tools to better your life in all areas. It is not only designed to manage oneself, but to improve and to master oneself. The right way.