Business Tip: Focus on Process Not Outcome

Business Tip: Focus on Process Not Outcome
What is it about meeting a goal that is so seductive? Is it
a sense of accomplishment? Maybe it can be a justification
for suffering through hardship to receive a happy ending.
But what if the goal did not matter? What if the journey to
reach the goal ended up being more satisfying than reaching
it?

The problem with getting tied up in trying to reach a goal
for it's own sake is that there is so much tied up in the
final result. If the desired result is not achieved then
everyone gets disappointed. It only takes a few times for
this to happen before your mind will start working against
you.

How does your mind work against you? First of all realize
that your brain will do everything it can to keep you from
pain. That's part of the reason we don't go around walking
into doors all the time. It's also why we have a bit of
trepidation using heavy power tools for the first time.

Failure is painful and the brain will learn that when we
don't meet goals there is pain involved. So instead of even
doing the work that would require us to say "no" when it
comes time to measure the goal, we just don't do the work.

And the work can bite back.

A common example would be for a person who does phone
sales. This job has one of the highest hiring rates around.
It also has one of the highest firing rates. Why is that?
There is a daily measure of whether a number of sales were
made in a day. If that number of sales was not made, then
it's a failure.

It's very difficult for most people to make the sales
numbers on a daily basis, so the people working the phones
have a tremendous amount of failure in their lives. So
rather than facing failure every day, they just stop
showing up.

How's that for avoiding pain?

You will notice in this example that the only thing going
for the worker was making the goal. The process of
achieving the goal was painful. That is, they were trying
to make sales on the phone. This is an unpleasant
experience and the sole reason for doing it was to achieve
the goal. Since the goal wasn't being met in most cases, it
became a totally unfulfilling experience.

Let's switch that around and place an attainable goal along
with an enjoyable process.

Many people enjoy playing sports and it's pretty easy to
measure results and goals. Cycling is a great sport, so
that will be our example. Imagine you have the goal of
riding 20 miles through beautiful countryside on a Saturday
afternoon. You've done a lot of riding, so 20 miles is
within your reach.

>From the beginning you are enjoying yourself. The warm sun
feels nice against your skin and the wind plays with your
hair. The aroma of Rhododendron fills the air and the ride
is brisk with little elevation gain.

This sounds like a bit of fun, doesn't it?

Before you know it, the twenty miles are up and you feel
great! You've accomplished your goal, and you even felt
great doing it.

But what if you didn't finish the goal? What if you saw a
friend along the way who asked you to stop in right then at
one of your favorite restaurants. Then you ended up
spending the rest of the afternoon there talking. You would
have missed out on the goal, but everything up to that
point had been enjoyable, so there's no reason for you not
to take it up again.

This shows some of the reasons why goals should be guides
for where we want to go, but we must be sure that the ride
along the way is going to be as much fun as getting there.

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You can find more mlm training advice at
TheCompleteMarketer.com (http://www.TheCompleteMarketer.com
) blog. Roger encourages you to go there and join in on the
discussion! Heck, you just might learn something - like how
a doctor and an engineer balance home life, child rearing
and helping you get ahead. ;)