How to Use Systems Thinking to Build Your Own Creative Path
Fabio Gampl · Sep 7, 2025
“Linear thinking is useful in a stable world. In a changing world, it’s limiting.”
– Peter Senge
We’re trained to think linearly, yet creativity thrives in thinking in systems.
Ask most people what school does, and they'll say it teaches you knowledge—math equations, historical facts, or writing rules.
While this is true, beneath all that memorization lies something much more significant:
A framework for how to think.
This framework is very useful when following a proven sequence of steps, like following an essay structure, using the scientific method, or solving for x in algebra.
However, when you're trying to build something of your own—when there's no standard path to follow, or career leader to climb?
That same framework you learn in school becomes your biggest obstacle.
Because it assumes you know where you’re going.
Step A leads to step B leads to the solution.
But when creating something truly new, you don’t know what the end result should look like, and you can’t map a route to an unknown destination.
That’s when linear thinking fails and systems thinking becomes your most valuable tool.
The Linear Trap
Most people think the path to achievement looks like this:
- Define your goal.
- Outline your course of action.
- Stick to the plan.
This approach works well for established career paths.
For example, if you want to become a doctor, the steps are clear:
(1) Study and get into medical school. (2) Complete medical school. (3) Do specialty training. (4) Get licensed and start practicing.
However, this step-by-step structure breaks down when you’re trying to create a career outside of these traditional paths.
That's because reality itself is actually more complex than a straight line of cause and effect.
For example, when learning a new skill, the common belief is that you simply need to practice it every day.
While this is true, there are also other components that significantly affect your progress, such as your talent, quality of sleep, stress levels, previous experience, nutrition, and motivation.
It’s not simply: A leads to B.
Often, it’s: A, B, C, and D together might produce E.
Linear thinking is a simplified model we learn in school to reduce complexity into clear steps, so we can produce predictable and repeatable outcomes.
But in reality, the world isn’t a simple chain of events—it’s a living, interconnected web.
A single event often has multiple roots, and one action can ripple into countless outcomes or even feed back into its own causes, creating cycles rather than a straight chain.
Sometimes a small choice triggers massive change, while the grandest effort produces little.
And the same action can lead to wildly different results depending on timing, environment, or surrounding circumstances
For instance, a musician might release a new song every week, expecting steady growth, but for years nothing happens—until one unexpected track explodes.
It wasn’t just the song itself, but timing, audience mood, cultural trends, collaborations, promotion, and even small chance events all had to align perfectly.
That means the nature of reality is non-linear.
Not a straight line but a network with many intersections.
When you are stuck in linear thinking, you expect a clear goal and predictable steps to get there—but in reality, when building your own path, that clarity doesn’t exist.
So when the destination is unknown, the only way forward is to think in systems.
Systems Thinking
“There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.”
— Donella H. Meadows
Reality is a system of systems, all intertwined.
If you zoom out, reality is one huge, complex network where everything affects everything else.
Yet we can look at smaller pieces to understand and navigate it more easily.
For example, a musician’s career is one part of the larger music industry, which itself interacts with culture, technology, and audience behavior.
A change in one part—like a new streaming algorithm—can ripple through the system, influencing outcomes in ways we often can’t predict.
This way of thinking is rooted in the General Systems Theory, first developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the mid-20th century.
Bertalanffy proposed that systems—whether biological, social, or technological—follow similar principles and are interconnected rather than isolated.
Instead of studying parts independently, systems theory emphasizes understanding relationships, interactions, and feedback loops, because changes in one part of a system can ripple across others.
To apply these principles to your own life and move from a linear to a systemic life view, focus on these two things:
(1) Prioritize Direction Over Fixed Goals In The Long Run
Linear thinking sets goals, systems thinking sets direction.
When you set a goal, you assume you know exactly where you want to end up—and you draw a straight line back to where you are now.
That’s useful for short-term, concrete tasks, like finishing a design project by Friday.
But stretched too far into the future, that line collides with reality’s unpredictability.
Life shifts, and rigid plans risk frustration, tunnel vision, or missed opportunities.
A sense of direction works differently.
It gives you clarity about where you want to move (say, toward a more creative life) without locking you into one fixed outcome.
You can adapt as opportunities, failures, and insights appear along the way.
This shift in thinking also becomes increasingly important in the age of AI.
Since no one can predict with certainty how the world will look in five years, flexibility and adaptability will be crucial traits.
A sense of direction gives you a reference point to evaluate whether your actions, habits, or systems are moving you closer to the life you want.
But at the same time, because it isn’t a rigid, fixed endpoint, it leaves room to pivot, experiment, and adjust as circumstances change.
(2) Investigate Carefully How Different Areas Of Your Life Interact and Influence Your Progress Toward This Direction
Linear thinking isolates, systems thinking connects.
In school, for example, subjects like math, biology, and chemistry are treated separately.
Looking at a field in isolation helps to create deep expertise in one domain.
Systems thinking, on the other hand, focuses on connections—how different parts influence each other and correlate.
Seeing your creative journey as a system means viewing your life as a whole, where every part affects the rest.
For instance, what you eat impacts your concentration, which in turn affects your ability to create.
When you start seeing life this way, you begin to identify leverage points.
Leverage points are small actions that create large effects across multiple subsystems.
There are two main types of leverage points: internal and external.
Internal leverage points are within your control — your habits, your mindset, your skills, your relationships.
Changing one of these can ripple into every area of life.
Meditation, for instance, is an internal leverage point.
Building this habit into your day strengthens focus, reduces stress, and sharpens self-awareness — benefits that ripple outward and ultimately feed back into your creative output.
External leverage points lie outside your control, but you can position yourself to benefit from them.
These are shifts in technology, culture, or economics that reshape the environment you move in.
Artificial intelligence is one of the biggest external leverage points right now.
You don’t control its existence, but you can adapt to it and use it to amplify your reach.
Learning to prompt AI effectively can save hours of repetitive work, free up creative energy, and allow you to operate at a scale that once required a full team.
Seeing your life as a system, where every part connects to the others, helps you spot these leverage points and use them to create an outsized impact.
Thriving in an Unpredictable Future
AI will reshape work, creativity, and entire industries.
Yet nobody can predict exactly when or how these changes will unfold.
This uncertainty is where systems thinking thrives.
While linear thinking makes you see each technological breakthrough as a threat to your plan, systems thinking allows you to see opportunities and recalibrate.
It focuses on connections rather than predictions, building the flexibility to pivot and the mental framework to spot leverage points others miss.
Because the future doesn't unfold in straight lines - it emerges from the intersections between disciplines, technologies, and human creativity.
Thank you for reading,
Fabio