Not having goals is the worst case.
You have nothing to aim for.
No clarity on what you’re doing.
Just floating along seeing how it all works out likely works fine like a leisurely cruise down the river.
Worst case, it leads you to a waterfall.
Best case something good happens for you.
Not because you made it happen, just because it happened.
No pro lives this way.
Consider Mikaela Shiffrin
Two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Three-time Overall World Cup champion.
Four-time reigning world champion in slalom.
The youngest slalom champion in Olympic history.
Do you think she has goals?
Damn right she does.
And in breaking the 33-year old record for the winningest slalom skier, she completed one run of the course in 58.78 seconds.
Just 0.13 seconds ahead of her rival.
Meaning, to beat Mikaela, you must be racing against the clock to within a fraction of a second.
Outcome and process goals
Pro athletes live and breathe their outcome goals.
If you can’t beat a time.
Lift a certain weight.
Throw a discus a minimum distance.
Well, you’re going to lose at what you spend your entire life training for.
This outcome goal drives top performance by getting your mind in gear for your process goals.
Meaning, pursuing every goal obviously comes back to process.
Losing weight, for instance, has nothing to do with weighing yourself every morning.
This outcome goal is merely a powerful device to get your process right—how you eat and exercise every day.
The same with massively scaling your business.
Your outcome goal gets you targeting what matters.
And then it’s your process goals every day that build momentum and keep you growing.
So what’s the #1 risk?
Is that you know all this!
It’s that you obviously get the power of having outcome and process goals.
But you only think you’re doing it!
You might have real clearly defined goals.
Know exactly what you’re targeting this year, quarter, month, week, day.
But, again, you’re not driving towards it.
You might even have a system for driving your winning process every day, like my ultimate days system.
But you’re still not doing it!
You and me!
See, the reason I write this is because it was part of my September Man upgrade.
I have what I perceive to be the best methods for my outcome and process goals.
But, again, I wasn’t doing it good enough.
Wasn’t holding myself accountable enough.
Accepting slippage in the outcome goals.
Avoiding some of the processes that were crucial to driving them.
You can be good this way.
You can be really good.
But you’ll never be excellent
To beat Mikaela you must shave a fraction of a second off your slalom time.
A fraction of a second!
Beating Usain Bolt is the same.
So too is Formula One.
You’ve got tons of variables, all the way down to the weight of the driver.
Winning here, your outcome goal, too comes down to a fraction of a second.
And so the process goals must be to optimize each and every input and therefore output.
Excellence isn’t just desired.
It’s absolutely necessary to winning.
What’s your goal?
Certainly, you can drift down the river with the bulk of the human population.
Showing up for a job they hate.
Moseying along in their business, doing just fine.
Heck, you can even have incredible outcome and process goals.
As I did in September.
But that’s the #1 risk.
That you’re not using them.
Where are you at on setting goals for yourself?
Have you tapped into finishing with your why?
Set your goals from your vision down to next step?
Are you using them?