Pursue the Goal Not the Method

Great article Chris, it's always useful to step back and get a whole picture when you're stuck repeating your routines.

Don't know if it is correct with the four days – what I heard is that all cells in the body are replaced in nine years. So, technically, every nine years you are in a completely new frame.

What if you're goal is consistency? I'm a trader and I focus on process (method). If I focus on process, I get the desired outcome. That feels good.

Apple's process is to invent new things that to me appear to be audacious. That is their method and they embrace the failure and the emotions associated with it to propel them forward.

Smart people don't like to be wrong (they don't like the feelings around failure) so they can make for horrible traders. Creating “new” things as you say takes a special mindset to embrace failure and the feelings that go with the failure and to recognize their positive intentions.

Great post, Chris. Many of us confuse the Method with the Goal.

I guess it depend if the method is something we are taught or a skill we improved ourself.

With the first I agree, because in itself it is useless if we never reach the goal.

But if the method is a skill, we can improve or alter it. Which might make it even more important then the goal.

Because the method (improved or altered) might be useful for many other goals to come.

Except when the method is integral to achieving the goal. Kicking the other guy's ass? Yes, kenpo is as good as jujutsu is as good as ninjutsu is as good as krav maga, up to a certain point. But there are very fine points to the method at the deepest levels that will get you more juice for the squeeze – but only if you master the method.

If you abandon method in pursuit of the goal too often, you risk becoming a dilettante – mediocre at everything, excelling at nothing. If you focus on method to the exclusion of goal, you risk becoming an ivory tower recluse, perfecting method but with nothing to show for your perfection, no results.

As always, the middle path seems to work best.

Love this! As someone who works to help not-for-profits achieve their philanthropic goals this is exactly what my team tells people all the time – tried and true fundraising techniques often have to be re-adjusted to meet the goal.

Love your assessment of the crowd mix in K.C. (and everywhere).

Sometimes I wonder how you keep up your road show, but being a witness to the few “getting it”, feeling the sparkle and walking out with a renewed sense of direction and purpose is the same reason I keep teaching and trying something new with my students every week:-)

Method is developing the skills you need to execute. It's putting the tool box together. The trick is being able to use the tools to improvise and not being afraid to use them in new ways. Every artist knows they can use their brushes, chisels, paints, or code to express themselves in creative ways, once they know how to use them well.
What I think you're trying to get at here is that you have to be willing to use a screwdriver as a hammer if necessary- to use old tools in new ways and be willing to find a better or faster way, to work with what you have to get you to the next goal, and not to be afraid to reach beyond your comfort zone.
The big goals need to be articulated so you know where you're going, but the pathways to that goal can be many. It's so important to be able to jump those hurdles, work around the blocks and make sure the roadblocks don't stop your progress forward, but just cause you to think about another way to get to the end point.

Chris. Very true. I love what I do – helping entrepreneurs meet their business planning and financing goals – but I am working every day to do it better, different, etc. Have more fun with it. Finding new methods to achieve my goal that improve both my professional and personal life.

Hey Chris! Makes total sense! As of 2:06 CET I’m also a disciple of accepting mystery :-) Great article.

Method or process Chris, but don't you think there is one regardless? Game plan to achieve the goal and all that…?
What I took from the post is that you must challenge and experiment on the method to achieve those goals, I don't think there is a shortage of goals out there, but I could be wrong!…Experiment is the word I like better! Stay hungry, challenge tradition and learn faster.
Didn't know that about the cell in our bodies regenerating every 4 days…Interesting!

Chris,

I really enjoyed your writing in this post. The style was so pleasurable to read. As far as the goal-versus-the-method thing, we agree. The only difference is in how we say it. Traditionally I've said, people can pay attention to where they're going or how they get there. It's like Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle – you can know where a particle is or it's momentum but not both.

Best,

D

It's about getting lost along the way. When the goal isn't clear, when the purpose isn't strong, we start second guessing any method, than we start looking for a new one and spiral out from there. Reminds me of “The stronger the WHY, the easier the HOW”.

It's one step further than the classic, “start with the end in mind”. It's “keep the end in mind, all the time” ;-)

Thanks Chris.

In property/casualty insurance sales, what I struggle with is the overriding goal. When I sit down to draft a mission statement, I come down to protecting my clients' assets through risk management programs (and helping them to understand those programs). My goal: help folks get back what they lose when something bad happens.

When I develop my productioni plan, it revolves around goals that are numbers oriented: how many policies do I need to sell representing how much premium and commission so I can support my family.

I'm sure those are pretty common sales goals: (1) Help clients and (2) Make a decent living.

While I need to be diligent and do the small, measurable things to accomplish (2), I have to continually make sure that (1) is being accomplished in the process. I think that's where the evaluation of the process needs to take place: are my methods and my habits serving people. If not, I have to adjust. And, of course, I can never lose sight of the main objective: serving my client base.

I think that if you focus on the predetermined, acceptable means of reaching a goal, you reject your own voice. Better mousetraps were built by those who saw a way to do something better, faster, more efficiently etc., using methods that hadn't been recognized by society on the whole.

If I were to ask you, “What's 11 + 11 equal?” Some brains would default to the rote memorization of times tables in school while others add the two 10s in the equation first, then tack on the remaining ones. Both reach the answer (22), but each takes a different route.

Focusing on the outcome, not the means allows for creativity and expansion. Great thoughts!

Best, M.

Goals are important and I agree that focusing on them should be a key to everyone's ultimate plan. However, it took me years of perfecting “method” before I could start delineating from said methods and innovating a unique creative approach towards my goals. This has now propelled me far ahead. – but I started with method – and understanding the system intricately then assists you in targeting a goal which is far outside of the standard system and making headway with that goal.

Of course, your theory is correct – at least it has been for me. Success can be attained with goal-oriented thinking – and mine is that I published a book, am now followed in over 20 countries, tour internationally speaking, have sponsorships and act as a spokesperson, and this year am expanding into my first online retail start up business.

Now on to the next goal. ::smile::

Thanks for your blog – great advice as usual.

Shawna Coronado

Good post, Chris. A couple of comments:

-People have to submit themselves to their discipline (practice scales, learn grammar, etc.) before they have the tools to move beyond the rules and innovate. That's part of paying dues and building skills. You're right, however, in that most of education confuses success in the drills with being an educated, productive person. They're not the same!

-As you said, most people's understanding of religion is “follow the rules.” Yet Jesus said, “I'm giving you only two rules. Love your God with all your heart; love your neighbor as yourself.” Working that out day to day is far more challenging, and invigorating, and humbling, than a paint-by-numbers, follow the rules religion.

An inspired post Chris. Nice.

I have to agree with Christopher here. What's the point of having goals if there's no method to reaching it? That's what we call dreaming. That's where all the American Idol contestants fall. That's where my friends and I were as teenagers when we gloated over our perceived talents and our goals despite our total lack of accomplishment.

Without method, goals are merely wishes. Wishes someone else has to deliver.

Chris, you are close, but not quite on target. Goal is necessary but insufficient. Most people make New Year's resolutions with all good intentions, but the great majority miss their mark. Many of us talk, dream, or make notes of writing a book, starting a business, changing our diet, and yet it doesnt quite come together.

The key question is, what Method am I missing? What NEW methods will propel me to my goal that I havent adopted yet? I may need priority skills, time management skills, or new openness to change or a new attitude that appreciates 'failure' or 'obstacles' as learning.

Look inward to find new methods. Then look outward to your goal.

And in case that seemed incomplete, I mean that I am a challenger of methods because I fight for new methods when clients come pre-attached to old methods. But I don't always have the luxury of being client-goal minded first because the client has hired us to do what THEY want to do, not necessarily to hear what I THINK they should do.

So there's the “we should be doing SEO” line of thinking. They have no idea what their goals are. Usually it's just “more traffic, more sales, more leads” and “we'll know how much more is enough when we get there.” Obviously this is a HORRIBLE way to do business, but it is by far the mindset of the majority of companies I encounter.

Good comment. Very clear, specially with the example of “Kempo karate is a method of fighting. Kicking the other guy’s ass is the goal”.

the title works. the last sentence of the opening confuses. If you are a seeker of the goal (or of goals), then, as Christopher Penn says, you become a dilettante. Trust me. I know. However, if you are a pursuer of The Goal, there is tremendous clarity. You aren't looking for what; you have that. You are now looking for how to get there, and that can be a variety of methods.

In reading “Switch” by the Heath brothers, I'm seeing that have a destination postcard, a clear picture of where you want to get, is particularly important in times of change. We're moving from here to there. We need to do everything we can to get there.

Because I have a little background in religion, you pushed me to go back to the number of times writers in the Bible say, forget that, push on. fix your eyes. focus on the goal.

Interestingly, Jesus is described at one point setting his face toward Jerusalem. No matter what, that's were he was going.

Unfortunately, we do turn it into rituals and focus on making sure we get the rituals exactly right. “How to pray so you get what you want. 8 ways to not offend the hierarchy.” But that's because in times of change or challenge, focus on on the method no matter what is easier.

Maybe the way to think of it is not either/or. Maybe it's priority. If we focus on goal first, then we use method as a way to get there, and method can fall away. If we focus on method, the our goal becomes better method, and we can have efficient methods that get nowhere.

I admit that long ago (and yes, sometimes in the present) I was more focused on the method. Before I discovered David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) I would spend so much time on making lists, and my graphic design mind wanted to format the text and make it look all shiny.

These days, I am accomplishing more because of GTD. It's a system, a method, that I would otherwise be a tad chaotic without. However, it is a method that I mold and shape into what works for me – it's not cut and dry. Without it, I wouldn't have the sense of accomplishment when I look at all the Things I was able to accomplish.

But – you're right – even though I do spend time setting up that system everyday, it is my goal that those things lead me to that is key. How do I get outcome A, if I don't have B, C, and D in place or figured out? Without the goals, I have no foundation to build the GTD method.