Photo by Cade Prior on Unsplash
The journey or the reward? The outcome or the process? The technique or the goal? These are age old questions that raise their heads today as we try to set goals and prioritise our work and our lives.
In Free Solo, rock climber Alex Honnold tells us that, whilst climbing the 3,000 ft face of Yosemite's El Capitan, he was focussed on technique - moving one foot, one arm at a time - not on the outcome. In Atomic Habits, James Clear makes a compelling argument that rather than running a marathon, what the subject really wants is to become a runner. You can run one marathon and then go back to sitting on the couch eating potato chips. Runners are people who get up early, go for a run, take their health seriously and live longer healthier lives. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, US swimmer Michael Phelps swam, won gold and [beat his own world record](https://beijing2008.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/phelps-is-so-fast-he-can-win-with-his-eyes-closed/#:~:text=BEIJING — Michael Phelps couldn't,came loose at the start.&text=Phelps broke his own world,the wall%2C” Phelps said.), all whilst unable to see because his goggles had fallen off.
Photo by Talahria Jensen on Unsplash
What Alex Honnold and Michael Phelps' achievements and James Clear's arguments make clear is the instrumental role that the process plays in helping people, teams, and organizations achieve their goals. Alex is able to scale rock faces because he trusts his ability to move one limb at a time. Michael wins gold medals blind because he trusts his ability to swim one stroke at a time. James Clear's readers are coached to achieve their diverse goals by making small 1% changes.
The process is where the rubber meets the road.
Nothing exists without something causing it and everything is conditional - everything that happens does so because conditions allow it to. Simply willing something to happen will not make it happen. Simply setting and believing in an end goal will not make it happen. But having an understanding of the conditions that lead to an outcome will be hugely empowering. The process is where the rubber meets the road.
At work it often feels like we are focussed exclusively on the end goal, the outcome, the gold medal. We set objectives and key results, we measure KPIs, our managers talk to us about goals, we remind our teams of the vision and the end destination. All of these things are important. Alex Honnold spend 10 years of his life living in the shadow of El Capitan obsessing about his goal to climb the rock-face. Phelps is very evidently motivated by winning gold and smashing world records. But they match their focus on the end goal with obsession over the process, the habits, the how.