Outcomes First, Then Goals
The New Year is a common time to set new goals. However, declaring your desired outcomes are far more effective. You might be asking, “What’s the difference between an outcome and a goal? Aren’t they the same thing?”…
The New Year is a common time to set new goals. However, declaring your desired outcomes are far more effective. You might be asking, “What’s the difference between an outcome and a goal? Aren’t they the same thing?” Well, yes and no.
Goal setting is a valuable practice that helps you stay on track and get things done. Goals are essential for completing tasks, whether it is developing a new business skill or cleaning your closet. While setting goals can motivate you, they can also produce a feeling that what you currently have isn’t enough, evoking self-criticism and negative energy. A sense of unease can come over you if your goal-oriented life discounts all that is good in the present moment.
A goal tends to be concrete, often focused on solving a problem. Goals are usually a black or white idea that is specific and measurable. They are often externally focused on getting or achieving something by a certain date.
When you set a goal, you begin to think about how you are going to achieve it, which evokes your analytical mind, focusing on specific information to achieve the goal. That’s a good thing. The downside is that, if you are overly focused on just that one goal, you may not pay attention to your intuition and lose sight of more opportunities that are on the horizon.
Over-reliance on goals can also set up a win/lose mindset, which fuels the internal Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT). For example, if you don’t reach your goal, your judging mind might say: “Why try anyway? I’ll never be a success.”Other questions may come up that consume your motivation to accomplish the goal. Am I going to fulfill my goal? Will I be successful or not? Will I be happy once I reach the goal? Should I set another goal to keep the pressure on? Am I a failure if the goal is not reached?
Instead, focus on outcomes first.
Outcomes tend to be more intrinsically focused, value driven, and longer term in nature. When you focus on a broader purpose for continuous learning, for instance, you have a compass that guides you even when things don’t go your way. In other words, outcomes tend to be “larger” than individual goals and often rest on the other side of the problems that goals are trying to fix.
If you combine goal setting in service to your declared outcome, you now have a win/win combination that will generate powerful and positive energy for the long run.
An example of a goal may be: “By next week, I will read a book about listening.” The desired outcome may be: “I am deeply committed to listening first to understand, rather than to be understood.”Hear the difference?
Reading a book about listening is an awesome goal. However, that goal says nothing about changing who you say you want to be. Your desired outcome to “listen to understand” describes the quality of your being.
When your goals are anchored within outcomes you really care about, you are giving yourself a much higher chance of reaching your goals. Why? Because, when action is connected to a larger desired outcome that you care deeply about, your focus generates positive energy that will sustain you over the long haul.
Focusing on outcomes does not mean you give up goals. Quite the contrary. But goals not connected to desired outcomes become a transactional exercise, with a higher chance you will revert to old habits when challenges arise.
No wonder New Year resolutions rarely work!
By setting your outcomes first, and combining it with goals, you cultivate your Creator essence which enjoys both the journey, as much as the destination.