Be Married to the Goal, Not the Game
How to be tenacious with achieving your objective but amenable with how to attain it
It’s happened to me so many times now that I’m faster at recognizing when I’m stuck on an idea because it’s mine. I know I’m being stubborn when I continue to defend it even when others find fault in it or I ignore the data that indicate I might be wrong.
In the workplace, I used to present an idea and couldn’t let it go. I believed it was so good. I ignored anyone else’s questions or challenges to it. I couldn’t entertain that there was more than one way of achieving a goal. It had to be my way or a very disengaged Vy way. Having lost a few battles and realizing my errors, I now focus on the goal rather than how we get there.
One particular example stands out for me. My partner and I were looking to move to another province and needed to sell our house. Because of the rising realtor commissions cost, I became married to the idea that I could sell our house privately. My partner appealed to me with logic:
- We’re both too busy to spend time on trying to market and sell the house
- We are not experts in real estate transactions
- We will likely become stressed and this will place a strain on our relationship
His reasons for why we should work with a realtor were all logical. I was already working twelve-hour days. Neither of us had ever taken a real estate course or even dabbled in the industry. And I tend to stress out and take it out on our relationship.
Even with secretly buying into his reasons, I stood my ground and said, ‘We are not paying a realtor when I know I can do a good job.’ At that moment, I forgot that our main objective was to get the house sold at a reasonable price, with the least amount of hassle. I was too stubborn about getting my way.
“If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”
― Jeff Bezos
We did commission a realtor, someone I enjoyed working with. We selected her because, in our meeting, she said to me, “I know you could sell this house better than me, but I can do it so that you can have your time back.” She knew exactly the words to convince me. I still believe to this day she was coached by my partner.
The result? She listed sold our house within two days of listing. There were 25+ viewings and we received an offer significantly over asking. This all happened at the time when I started a new job, was travelling, and didn’t have time to think about anything else but work.
My original response was an example of me being stubborn and married to the game instead of focused on the goal.
When we are married to our ideas (the game), then we lose sight of the end state (the goal). We get caught up thinking our idea is the best and we defend it despite rational or better ideas. I have learned through years of missteps and wrong decisions to know that the goal is achieved when I consider others’ ideas and are not stuck to my own. The best idea is the one, not mine.
This is my approach now to be flexible to solutions:
- Present the goal and get people to align with the outcome. The tool or the approach to get there matters less.
- Present at least 3 options. Two other options in addition to my idea are my standard approach to pitch any change.
- Compare and contrast. I now rely on my critical thinking and ability to influence skills over trying to emotionally convince others of my idea.
- Remember the big picture. Recall the purpose and self-challenge if taking a different road still gets to the same destination.
It’s not easy to stay neutral and focus on the big picture instead. Some days, I still fall into the trap of, ‘I know this is the best way, why can’t everyone just follow my suggestion.’ Most days, because of my experience, I realize it doesn’t matter whose idea it was, what matters is we achieved our goal.
