The process of giving it your best shot
We live in a society that is obsessed with setting and achieving goals.
Our biggest corporations have quarterly and annual performance targets. Best-selling books advice us to begin with the end in mind - by defining a goal as clearly as possible and imagining how its outcomes would unfold. They tell us to picture ourselves working in our dream job, or imagine our names on best-seller lists for that novel we are writing.
All of this serves as great fuel for motivation. It encourages us to step in the direction of achieving our dream, consciously and unconsciously. As Paulo Coelho states, once you want something so badly, the universe conspires to helping you achieve it.
All our thoughts, actions and efforts ride the crest of our intentions, just like a surfer rides a wave. It helps to have our intentions well defined and vividly imagined to have this wave grow higher and higher.
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The problem is that this comes with great risk.
In any of our endeavours, we are merely in control of the inputs and not the outcomes. During a job interview, we can ensure we present our best version. We are not in control of the type of employee the company seeks, the disposition of our interviewer that morning, or the prejudices he may bring to the table. We have limited control over how the world receives our performance, and given this situation, the goal-oriented approach of imagining ourselves in a desired outcome can be a recipe for disappointment.
The higher the wave of our expectation, the greater our risk of sustaining injury if things do not work out well.
Is there a way out of this predicament? Is there a means to cushion the risk of disappointment while following a goal-oriented approach?
An ancient Hindu text seems to offer an answer
One of the most frequently cited portions of the Bhagavad Gita is…
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन | — karmaṇy-evādhikāras te mā phaleṣhu kadāchana
…translated as: “You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions.”
This message has always intrigued me. It seems to cushion the risk of our expectations. Nevertheless, it has always been a little cryptic. How does one detach one’s self from the outcome, while staying motivated? How does an author stay detached, while working day and night to realize her dream of getting published? How does the competitive swimmer not think of winning a medal, as he wakes up at 4 AM, takes a cold shower and swims a kilometer?
The key to detach one’s self from an outcome lies in the knowledge of giving something their best shot. When a person knows that, she is aware that she has done everything in her control. If the desired outcome is secured, there is no cause for worry. If things do not work out in spite of that, she realizes that an external, uncontrollable factor has played its hand here. Consequently, the disappointment she faces is reduced accordingly.
Pulling through with all her current capabilities, if an author writes a novel that does not end up selling well, there is solace in knowing that she could not have changed that outcome. She picks herself up, learns from the experience, tweaks her writing process and starts off writing another one that is more likely to succeed.
But achieving what I have written above is not easy to practice. There are several illusions that keep us from realizing if we have genuinely given something our best shot, such as the niggling the feeling that we could have worked harder or prioritized better. There are endless causes for self-blame whenever failure strikes, especially because it isn’t usually clear what caused us to fail or by how much we failed. We need an approach that frees us up from the tyranny of this doubt and uncertainty. This is how I interpret what the Bhagavad Gita describes as every individual’s “prescribed duty”.
Process orientation — giving it your best shot
Having established that giving something our best shot is the overarching goal, let us take a step back. The solution I propose is to orient our efforts around a well-defined process. This can be executed, by using a broad three step approach.
1. Define the process: Break your goal down into rituals that are performed regularly. The more specific these rituals are, the better, for they can be measured, tracked and managed. For example, the goal of writing a novel could be broken down into a ritual of writing 500 words per day or writing and editing for half-an-hour each, every day.
It helps for these rituals to have a quantitative and not a qualitative goal. For instance, it is better to have 500 words written down regardless of how crappy or good they are on a particular day. Quality in any process, especially creative ones, can be random and does not serve well as a motivational foothold for a regular habit.
Process definition must be centered around pragmatism. It is important to remember that giving that full-marathon the best shot must also be balanced with several other best shots — at keeping a day-job, at being a reliable partner or spouse, at keeping one’s self fit, and at being a good friend and family member. Always factor in your existing constraints during the ‘Define’ stage.
2. Execute the process: Once the process is defined, execute it without exceptions. The idea is to do the process repeatedly until it becomes an automatic action — a habit. Measure how frequently you perform the process, and on how many days you are unable to meet your plan. Additionally, define metrics that can help you assess it. For instance, while writing a novel, if your goal is half an hour of writing everyday, also measure how many words you write every day, so that you have a trend to revisit and analyze in the next step.
3. Refine the process: Refinement is the act of gathering feedback periodically from your execution and making changes to the process. Track progress on how regularly you have been sticking to your practice with an interval that makes sense (say monthly). Observe trends in your metrics, and change the processes definition accordingly. Also consider new constraints while changing your process definition during this stage — maybe your workload for the next month would be lesser, letting you devote more time to your project.
Additionally, each process refinement involves answering a couple of important questions, and a decision to take subsequently:
- Is it working?
- Are you having fun?
The “Is it working” question can be answered by the metrics you collect as a part of the execution. If you’re writing more words per day in a half-an-hour window, that is a sign of things moving in the right direction.
Further, it is important that the ritual is fun to pursue on an ongoing basis. Anything that cannot be enjoyed as a regular habit is not worth pursuing in the long run.
The answers to these questions will help you make important decisions on how you should further the process — to pursue it as it is, pivot or even give it up. The saying, “Winners don’t quit” is a myth. Any winner we encounter has quit several projects, but with discernment and wisdom. That is what process-orientation is aimed at helping us achieve.
A couple of important rules
- The process is defined for execution without exceptions. With too many exceptions come the sinking feeling that you have not given something your best shot, and turns this whole exercise turns futile. Therefore, define wisely.
- The process must be changed only during the refinements, and at no other time. Optimal flexibility is our friend. Too much flexibility is our enemy.
The bottom line
Goal orientation is a great approach for motivating ourselves to set and achieve lofty goals. However, goal orientation comes with the risk of disappointment in case we do not achieve our goals. Given that the intended outcomes for several of our goals are not within our own control, we need to cushion goal orientation with a process — one that helps us give a particular goal our best, realistic shot. There is merit in doing that because giving something our best shot is liberating. It sets us free from the outcomes of our action.
The idea behind process orientation is to shift the motivation from achieving the goal, to the enjoyment that we derive as we inch towards it with a regular practice. In the immortal words of Ursula K. LeGuin: “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
What I’ve proposed above is not a solution, but a rubric. It is meant to provoke thought rather than prescribe actions. You could take its elements and modify them to suit whatever works for you.
After all, the greatest aim of every human being is to self actualize — live with a feeling that one has given one’s best shot at living it. Building a process that helps us get there is a life-long endeavour, aligned with one of our most ancient sources of wisdom.
