If You Like An Outcome, Focus On Process !

Many a times we see these titles or people in these positions -our first natural reaction is to be either we get into an admiration mode or  just give credit of their success to some luck factor.And many a times we feel that it is not for us and we’re not made for it!

This is about the most of us , the reason here is that we focus too much on the outcome, the final product and don’t even try to dig about the process,about the background of someone or something successful !

We all know that there is more to success than just looking at the results without understanding that at the end of the day it comes down to  consistency and the process involved in getting those positions or titles.

Let’s look at the process involved in getting a great body :

To get a great body involves change in whole life style ! Discipline, controlled diet, sleeping on time etc – you can’t say that someone was lucky to follow this discipline.

A lot  comes from inside but there’s a process involved in achieving anything, to reach any goal.

When you start focusing your attention and energy less on the outcome but rather on the processes or the techniques involved to reach an outcome you discover that you learn faster, are more successful and you start appreciating others’ success more.

Altogether you gain more in life when you focus on the process rather than the results.

Understanding what you want to achieve and what process should be adopted are the first steps towards achieving anything.

And out of these two, understanding the process is more important.

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” -W. Edwards Deming

And sometimes process looks too monumental, too many things to do , too many steps , too much time-lag between action and achievement and then there is no guarantee whether you would reach the desired goal or not.

In his book,Living With Monks, Jesse Itzler tells a story about being put on dishes duty at the monastery :

Jesse begins doing the dishes after having served food to over 100 people. As he’s working, the monks keep bringing in more and more plates. It gets to point that there are about 500 dirty dishes stacked up.

Knowing this could take hours, he asks one of the monks how many more he’d have to do,

“You only have to do one,” he said, “Just the one you’re holding in your hand.”

What once appeared to be a grueling and near impossible task is now as simple as doing one dish after the other.

This is the power of focusing on the process. The process turns something not so simple into something very simple.

Don’t focus on the achievement. Focus on the process. Break down your task into smaller pieces and do one thing at a time. Do it well, and then move on to the next piece.

The road to any goal is a matter of taking one step after the next.

So next time you find a success in anything – a successful product , a successful marketing campaign , a successful person- try to understand the process on how the person reached there, how the final product/person/idea got conceptualized and designed, what steps were involved .

Try to follow the foot-steps of the process, there would be failures and disappointments on the way, the journey would be boring with lot of distractions around, but you would reach there if you have a dire need to reach there.

“Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.”-Elizabeth King

How to set up a process :

1) Decide what you want to achieve.

2) Try different ways of achieving it until you find one that works for you

3) Keep these in consideration :your own behaviour, external environment, available resources

3) Do more of what works. Do less of what doesn’t.

4) Don’t stop doing it until it stops working.

5) Repeat.

It is both -this simple and this hard.