Process vs. Outcome

 

Fear

Why are children scared of the dark?  Or monsters under the bed? Because in their infantile, underdeveloped minds, there is actually a real possibility that there is a monster under the bed.  There may really be something in the dark room that will “get them.” They believe those possibilities are real and they fear the outcome. They fear what will happen if they walk into that dark room not knowing what awaits them.  They can only see the outcome and do not yet understand the process by which they can control their emotions and overcome their fear. They do not have the intellectual awareness to realize it is just their imagination, which they cannot yet control. The outcome of “not knowing” makes them scared and controls their actions. Of course, as we get older, most of us outgrow being “scared of the dark” because we learn how to control our imagination.  We know we can walk into the dark room and the outcome will not be harmful. It’s the outcomes we don’t know that worry us. Just as little kids are scared of the dark because they fear the outcome, we are often controlled by fear of outcomes and by the thought of failure.

 

Outcomes

We are constantly affected by outcomes in everyday life.  We worry about the results of everything. A student freaks out because they have a huge test in school they can’t afford to fail.  A businessman has a very important presentation for the corporate bosses and his stress level shoots through the roof. A baseball player is in an 0-15 slump and he just can not understand what is going on with his swing. Outcomes. Outcomes. Outcomes. Here is my advice. STOP worrying about the outcome. Outcomes are overrated.  Go watch a tee ball game at a local baseball park and you will see my point. In most athletic contests people only care about who wins. Which team won? What is their record? What is that athlete’s ranking? If you go watch a tee ball game you will see the pure joy and happiness from kids playing the game for the right reasons. Those tee ball players are playing baseball strictly for the fun and enjoyment of playing baseball. They don’t care about the score, who they are playing, college scholarships, state titles, nothing.  They are not affected by any outcomes other than “what’s for snack” and “who gets the game ball.” Strictly fun with their friends and the game they enjoy. Wouldn’t life be so much easier if we could embrace that attitude all of the time? If we didn’t worry about the outcome of everything. 

Alabama football Coach Nick Saban  has won 6 National Championships and has done so by preaching to his football teams to not focus on the outcome, but rather the process by which goals are obtained.  He states, “Don’t think about winning the SEC Championship. Don’t think about the national championship. Think about what you needed to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”  It has certainly worked for Coach Saban.  How can it work for us?

 

Process

Process is about controlling what we can control and not worrying about anything else along the way.  Accomplishments are a matter of steps, and paying close attention to the small details of each step better prepares us to ultimately achieve whatever goal we set out to accomplish. A big test is a complex achievement.  So is that important presentation for the businessman, and a championship title for the athlete. Trusting the process is the ability to break down big tasks (big goals) into smaller, manageable parts, and micro managing each little detail to advance us towards the bigger goal. 

 

Goals vs. Milestones

The bigger goal (the test, the championship, etc.) is too broad and too far away to focus all of our attention on at the same time.  We need a more narrow minded focus. We need to understand each individual step that it will take for us to reach that goal and achieve that success. Instead of “goals,” let’s use the word “milestone.”  By definition a milestone is “a stone set up beside a road to mark the distance in miles to a particular place.” On a long road trip, we know we are getting closer to our destination (our goal) as we pass the next mile marker. The “process” of reaching our goal means we must meet each milestone along the way.  It is more productive to create milestones to track progress towards the bigger goal and to focus on what needs to be done to reach each of those milestones. For instance, If the ultimate goal for a team is to “win the state championship” then decide what needs to happen from the beginning of the season to the end of the season to give the team the best chance to reach that goal.  What achievements will need to be met along the way to bring home the hardware? The process can be broken down into as many parts as needed. Maybe the first milestone is to have 100 percent attendance at off season workouts. Then the next milestone is to get through tryouts without injury, then have 10 solid practices before the first game, etc. Each milestone is celebrated as it is reached, the next milestone is discussed, and the process needed to reach it is outlined. Whether it be winning the state, passing the test, or baffling the bosses with a great presentation, making milestones will allow the focus to stay on the process and not the outcome.  

   

Persistence

Staying focused on the process takes hard work, steadfast dedication and, most importantly, persistence.  Persistence is defined as “a firm or continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.” It can be frustrating when milestones are not met and new ones must be made, but persistence is the key.  If a goal is worth fighting for, then we need to realize what extremes we are willing to endure to hold fast to the process in order to achieve the ultimate goal.  Any goal can be achieved. All outcomes are possible, but there will certainly be bumps in the road. There will be obstacles we must face and milestones that are not met. As he was dying of cancer, the great basketball coach Jim Valvano uttered the famous words “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” Now,  I am not comparing winning a state championship to battling cancer, but If he can have that kind of courage fighting for his life, then we can have it about less significant matters in our everyday lives. Life is hard. Achieving goals is hard.  Without persistence, the process will be too long and too hard to handle and we will quit before reaching our goals. The glory goes to the ones that do persist and are able to stay the course long enough to see their goals achieved. If we want to begin a journey towards a big goal, and begin to outline a process by which we will get there, we must first adopt the idea of persistence as the backbone of all we do. Commit to the task ahead of you. Commit to each milestone no matter the cost, no matter the amount of time it may take. In his book Pound the Stone author Joshua Medcalf writes “when nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.  Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Stay the course. Keep fighting.  Persist. It will be worth it in the end.