“Stop focusing on the Outcome and start focusing on the Process.”
“It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”
We hear these sayings and we know what we are supposed to do; however, we lose the “trust the process” mentality and we want the rewards, results, benefits immediately. I cannot stress enough that you need to become a Process-over-Outcome Person. A Process Person is about who you want to become and an Outcome Person is what you get. Being process oriented will pay dividends in your life. Remember, “happiness” is a process, not a place.
Think for a minute about the touchdown you scored or the foul shot you made. Did those particular instances help you become the person you are today? No, but the process of achieving these feats did: the summer practices in the heat, the offseason training and drills, or all of the practice in your driveway with just you and the basketball hoop. The process is what forms your habits, work ethic, discipline, attitude, and most simply your “You.”
How about from an educational standpoint? You want to get your degree so you can get a job making a lot of money. Your degree may help you get in the door, but it is the process of working and gaining experience and skills that will make it a high paying job and what you need to become successful.
Too often we want the short cut to success, but there isn’t one. When I talk about success, I am not just talking about financial or employment success, I mean self-success. The success that you are happy with who you are and what you do. Stop gauging your success on what others think of you. It’s what you think of you. I’ve spent a decent amount of my life figuring this one out. You don’t have control of outcomes, but you have complete control of the process in which you use to reach a desired outcome.
I could sit here and write a million inspirational quotes that are supposed to lead you the Promised Land. I am not saying they don’t have validity. All I am saying is you have be in the trenches of your craft. You are not just going to wake up one day and be who you want to be, it’s a process.
Dealing with young athletes, I see this Outcome/Process battle pretty much on a daily basis. We make it a point to instill the process of being the person that you want to become over simply getting what you want. When people step into the gym to train for their sport, they have goals and dreams. It might be running a certain time, jumping a certain height, lifting a specific weight, gaining mass, losing weight, or whatever it might be, these goals are what you want, the “Outcome.” We are going to teach you the “Process” of achieving these outcomes. This structure changes your focus and makes you become more consistent and disciplined.
Parents nowadays are also very quick to make things easy for their kids. We lose sight of teaching them how to endure the process, or how to figure things out on their own because we feel like we aren’t being a good parent if we let our kids fail. We worry about them being happy in the now and forget there is educational value in failure and going through tough situations in life. Unfortunately, these kids will become entitled grown-ups that do not know how to handle difficult life situations and that is more detrimental than if they were the starting pitcher on their 10 year old baseball team.
There is no such thing as overnight success. Sometimes we see a successful person all of a sudden and we just assume that they were lucky and are now making a lot of money. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This person has been working long and hard at their craft before they became a great singer, businessman/woman, player, coach, etc. There were a lot of failures, time spent, consistency, and discipline that went into it. It was “The Process!”