The Art Of Thinking In Systems: Improve Your Logic, Think More Critically, And Use Proven Systems To Solve Your Problems Strategic Planning For Everyday Life pdfdrive com

Systems thinking to the rescue
Systems thinking allows us to stop feeling helpless and hopeless when it comes
to our relationships. Simplistic cause and effect thinking can leave us believing
that our relationships are on the brink of ending as soon as we begin to fight and
disagree with one another. We are troubled by increased fighting and start to
look for causes as we wonder if our partner has found someone else, no longer
finds us attractive, or has fallen out of love with us. This leads to a feeling of
hopelessness, especially if we try to make extra efforts that our significant other
doesn’t seem to notice or appreciate. This, in turn, leads to more fights and
feelings of disappointment.
When we stop and look at things from a systems perspective, we take our power
back and begin to feel hopeful again. Thinking of our relationship as a system
and stock means that both partners are feedback loops. We look for any changes
that may have happened recently and analyze whether the system dynamics have
changed.
Often, one partner puts in more work than the other in a relationship. Ideally,
these roles change so when one partner is feeling down, the other one will be
there to lift them up and support them. In terms of systems thinking, one partner

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is in the dominant feedback loop, and that dominance will shift back and forth
between the two.
The goal is to look at the relationship logically and decide if there was a shift in
dominance. Perhaps there is an additional external feedback loop that is
impacting the system. Maybe there are problems at work, or difficulties in
communicating.
Both relationships and systems change over time. This change is inevitable. We
may not always recognize it as it is happening, and the effects of the change may
not always be immediately obvious to us. In healthy relationships, both parties
understand that change happens and neither person will be exactly the same as
they were at the beginning of the relationship. The tricky part is being accepting
of those changes while still maintaining the dynamics of your own personal
feedback loop.
If those dynamics change and become negative, your partner will feel
unsupported and misunderstood and conflicts will begin. There will be a gap
between how much you really understand them and how much they expect to be
understood. It is crucial to recognize that gap and close it. Otherwise, it will only
grow with each fight, and your reinforcing feedback loop will keep focusing on
the negative. The relationship will suffer and begin to fall apart.