Every personal growth expert, self-help guru, or coach of any kind, will emphasize the importance of setting goals. And, while setting goals is SUPER important, most people make the mistake of setting the wrong goals. And just like with your smartphone’s GPS map system, putting in the wrong destination (goal) will not take you to your correct destination.
Within the personal growth space, there is ongoing debate as to whether the goals we set should be effort-based or outcome based. At first look, both make sense, but there is value in understanding why one is much more effective in terms of getting what you want.
Let’s say you got a new job selling nuts and bolts. Your pay is strictly based on commission, so the more you sell, the more money you make. It would be wise to figure out an approximate amount of money you’d like to make each month, calculate how many nuts and bolts you need to sell to make that money, and make that your primary goal. To make $10K per month you need to sell 100K nuts and bolts… so the goal is to sell 100K nuts and bolts. You can write down that number and stick to your mirror so you see it every time you are in the bathroom. You can write that number down on a Post-It note and stick it to your phone so you see it all day long. You can visualize selling 100K nuts and bolts, feel the feeling of selling those nuts and bolts, and repeat that goal to yourself over and over throughout the day. This would be considered outcome-based goal setting, and it is what most people know and do when it comes to setting goals. But there is a more effective way of getting what you want in life.
The 100K nuts and bolts you want to sell don’t simply sell themselves. In order to hit your goal, you’d have to make a certain amount of phone calls to buyers each day, get out and visit prospective clients, and recall past buyers to make sure they have what they need. This is the effort required to sell more nuts and bolts. Effort-based goals would be activity based… number of calls you will make each day, number of businesses you will visit each day, and number of old customers you will contact each day. This Post-It note would read, “Make 30 calls each day. Visit 5 businesses each day. Pull 10 old files each day.”
The difference between the outcome (selling 100K nuts and bolts) and effort (making calls, visiting businesses, and pulling old files) is that you have control over the effort, but not the outcome. At the end of each day, the number of nuts and bolts sold is out of your control and can vary based on many factors. What IS within your control is the action you take. While the number of nuts and bolts sold can’t be directly controlled by you, the number of calls you make and number of customers you visit is. And the more calls you make and customers you visit, the more nuts and bolts you surely will sell.
SO, whether you’re trying to lose weight, make more money, be a better parent or spouse, get a promotion, or whatever it is, focusing on the efforts needed to achieve these goals is the most powerful goal you can set. Setting outcome goals is important… “I will lose weight.” The more specific and clear the outcome the better… “I will lose 20 pounds.” Putting a specific timeframe on it makes it even more powerful… “I will lose 20 pounds by July 15th. I do believe outcome goals are critical, and you need to set them. But that weight doesn’t just come off. It is the effort-based results that will get you to that desired outcome.
“I will only eat two meals per day within an 8-hour window.” “I will refrain from junk food, limit my carbohydrate intake, and drink 80-100 ounces of water each day.” “I will lift weights three times each week and do 30 minutes of high intensity interval training three times per week.” It is the actions and effort that get the weight off. And you have control over the actions and effort.
Set goals. Set outcome goals AND effort goals. See what it is you ultimately want, figure out what action steps you must take each day to achieve that outcome, and make those action steps the goals you must hit each day. More effort-based goals will lead you to much more success in terms of the outcomes you ultimately want, and those outcomes will come more quickly, with less frustration, and with much more consistency.
