“It’s Not Working (Yet).”

I’m kind of obsessed with Seth Godin’s latest book, The Practice. I mentioned in my last post that it’s a book that has hit me square between the eyes. The last book that did that for me was Steven Pressfield’s, The Art of War. Both, in their unique way, basically tell us to quit focusing on the outcome and, simply (ugh…much easier said than done), embrace the process…The Practice (Godin)…Do The Work (Pressfield).

Over the years of working with athletes, as well as those trying to find fitness and health, I repeatedly see the same pattern when setting goals:

“I want to lose 20 pounds.”

“I want to qualify for Kona.”

“I want to break 5 minutes in the 500 freestyle.”

“I want to finish top 5 in this year’s race.”

The first thing—the primary focus—of most people when trying to create change in their lives is to focus on outcome-oriented goals. As Godin says, “[w]e live in an outcome-focused culture.”

Outcome-Oriented Goals Suck

Why?

Unfortunately, for all of us with the tendency to focus on outcome-oriented goals, outcomes are uncontrollable. And, because of this, outcome-oriented goals lead to frustrations because they don’t happen like we want them to, how we imagined, or on our timeline.

And, when things don’t happen like we want, how we imagine, or on our timeline, we get frustrated. By focusing on outcome-oriented goals, we lose focus on the joy of the process…The Practice…The Work.

“I want to qualify for Kona.”

Qualifying for Kona is a noble goal. Unfortunately, we can’t control the outcome of the race. We may, on the day of the race, have the best race—an Ironman race that we couldn’t even have dreamed of—and still not qualify.

Why?

The best athletes in the world may have just happened to show up on race day…just like we did.

And, because we can’t control who else showed up, we can’t control our outcome.

We may show up for another race and have another race that is beyond our wildest dreams and still not qualify.

This can be exhausting.

Overtime, with repeated failures to meet outcome-oriented goals, we may find other endeavors to dedicate our time and attention to, we may start to get lazy in our efforts thinking “it’s just not worth the commitment,” or we may completely lose the joy and feel burned out over the daily grind.

Focusing our efforts on uncontrollable outcome-oriented goals is exhausting. Godin says it best: “If you are using outcomes that are out of your control as fuel for your work, it’s inevitable that you will burn out. Because it’s not a fuel you can replenish, and it’s not fuel that burns without residue.”

Process-Oriented Goals: A Penny A Day

Pennies aren’t that attractive or all that shiny.

If someone showed you a penny today, you wouldn’t think much of it.

Tomorrow, if that same person showed you another penny, you, likely wouldn’t give it much attention.

How about 7,500 pennies?

If you’re like me, I’d be intrigued and want to know the story behind how the person got a huge bag of 7,500 pennies.

7,500 pennies are a good metaphor for the value of process-oriented goals.

If 7,500 pennies are a representation of the number of days someone has put into eating healthy, that may, just may, increase the likelihood of losing 20 pounds.

If a penny-a-day, for 7,500 days, is dedicated to training for doing the best one could possibly do in training for an Ironman, that may, just may, increase the likelihood of qualifying for Kona.

If someone trains day in a day out for 7,500 days, that may, just may, increase the chances of breaking 5 minutes for the 500 freestyle.

And, as you can imagine, a bag of 7,500 pennies for days embraced in the process for improving race training may, just may, increase the likelihood of that person finishing in the top 5 for a race.

At the time of reading Seth Godin’s The Practice he had written 7,500 blog posts. As he states, “half of them are below average compared to others, on any metric you’d care to measure. Popularity, impact, vitality, longevity. That’s simple arithmetic. The practice embraces the simple truth. It’s all a way of understanding that if you have a practice, failure (in quotes if you wish) is part of it.”

Along the way, there was likely a lot of “failure”. But, likely because of the 7,500 pennies, Seth Godin is a bestselling author of numerous books.

When we set outcome-oriented goals, because the pennies aren’t that attractive, we give up when we don’t get the shiny objects—the outcomes—on our timeline.

But, the journey of 7,500 pennies is attractive. By setting process-oriented goals, the attractiveness of pennies grows on a daily basis because we are able to see the attractiveness of the process…The Practice…the Work. We can see, and keep track of, our work.

The Process Works (Eventually)

Drop a penny.

“It’s not working (yet),” Godin suggests that we tell ourselves.

Drop another penny.

“It’s not working (yet).”

And another. And another. And another.

The work becomes the outcome. It’s not shiny. It’s not attractive. It’s not mind-blowing. It’s just work. But, doing that day after day after day can lead us to have a deep feeling of satisfaction…of joy…of success. The accumulation of pennies, eventually, is deeply satisfying.

“The practice is a choice. With discipline, it’s something we can always choose The practice is there for us, whether or not we feel confident. Especially when we don’t feel confident.”

As you embark on your endeavor to seek change in your life that requires a massive investment in the process, ask yourself:

“If we failed, would it be worth the journey? Do you trust yourself enough to commit to engaging with a project regardless of the chances of success? The first step is to separate the process from the outcome. Not because we don’t care about the outcome. But because we do.”

The process works (eventually).