Why You Need both Outcome Goals and Process Goals?

The reason most people end up not fulfilling their intentions, realising their dreams, achieving their goals is because they fail to recognise the difference between Outcome and Process / Input Goals.

Outcome Goals define what destination you want to reach and by its very name are not in our control. We cannot guarantee that the outcomes we want will get created. Inspite of that, the first step to create a fulfilling life is to define the outcome goals. Happiness is really the experience of growth. If you review your outcome goals, you will realize the achievement of these necessarily means you have to grow as a human being. That is why impossible, unimaginable goals that fill your heart with joy, cause your eyes to shine like bright stars, which make you want to sing and dance are the best goals because of the massive growth you would have to undertake to realize these goals - growth across all the 4 bodies of your Being (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual), growth in leadership depth, growth in business excellence and growth in craft mastery.

The mistake most people make is to get attached to the outcome goals because the outcome goals are merely indicators of how much growth we are committing ourselves to and to define the inputs required to achieve these goals. The inputs required to achieve the Outcome Goals are called the Process or Input Goals. These are our daily actions that we need to take to make our desired outcomes a reality.

Intention is for the future and attention to be firmly fixed in the present moment to fulfil on any intention. Once the Outcome Goals are defined, give them up to the Universe because the future is not in our hands and bring your focus totally to the present moment to work on your Input / Process Goals.

A powerful way to create the future is to define your Top 5 Outcome Goals for the year across the 5 areas of your wheel of Life (deeply fulfilling successful career, loving harmonious relationships, happy responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed, nurturing nourishing me-time, making a difference) as a new year dawns and identify Top 10 Process Goals to take action on daily to ensure the achievement of the Outcome Goals. Write them on a 1-pager along with your Personal Inner Commitment, Strengths and Values.

Read this 1-Pager daily 3 times - as soon as you wake up, after meditation and just before sleeping. This is a powerful way to remind yourself of what is your commitment to create (Top 5 Outcomes) in that year, strengths that power you to create, who you are committed to be irrespective of circumstances or other people or outcomes (values), your life’s purpose (personal inner commitment) and Top 10 Process Goals (what you need to do to achieve the outcomes you are committed to create in a specific year).

As you review and reflect on your 1-pager at the end of the year, one of the 3 things would happen:

a. a foundation gets laid for the Outcome Goal to be achieved,

b. an Outcome gets created but different from what you had intended though this Outcome serves your growth more powerfully that your original Outcome,

c. the Outcome got achieved.

What is the most powerful creative force in the world without which you would not be able to achieve your goals, fulfil your intentions, realise your dreams?

Gratitude. Not thinking gratitude but feeling gratitude in your heart and in your body. That is when it is truly authentic and powerful. If there is a drop of water in a glass and I am grateful for it, the glass will fill up with water. If my glass is three quarters full and I am discontented, experience scarcity, lack because of the emptiness in the glass, yearn for the glass to fill up, complain verbally or non-verbally about what is not there, continuously focus on what is not available to me, the glass will soon become empty. It is interesting how what you focus on grows and what you don’t focus on slowly disappears. I encourage you to experiment with this idea in your life to arrive at the truth of it.

Feeling gratitude is actually turning your focus into the positive aspects in other people and in your environment, in your circumstances. When you focus on the positive aspects, they expand. You cannot feel gratitude and not feel joy, love and peace. This year, make a commitment to deepen your experience of gratitude for what is there and what is not there. Commit to experiencing the perfection in the Universe. In an interview, Amitabh Bachchan, Indian movie actor growing in his superstardom even at 76, said that he is grateful when his intention gets fulfilled and he is even more grateful when his intention doesn’t get fulfilled because then the Universe’ intention is getting fulfilled.

There is huge power in childlike trust and faith in the Universe, which centres you emotionally, mentally and spiritually freeing you to focus deeply in the present moment to take powerful effective action to create the reality of your choice instead of getting caught up and wasting time participating in the emotional drama of life.

Be grateful if your Outcome got created. Be grateful if your specific Outcome didn’t get created and some other Outcome got created because this is what serves your growth at this moment most powerfully, if you would only open yourself to recognise that. Be grateful if a foundation got laid for the Outcome Goal to be achieved because the foundation, which may seem like a baby step at this moment is the most important step for the achievement of this Outcome goal. Without the foundation step, this tiny little first step, the Outcome Goal will not get achieved ever.

Review your Outcome and Process Goals at the end of the year. Based on your learnings during the year, you may want to shift your Outcome Goals and change your Process Goals to create your Outcomes with even more velocity.

Enjoy your journey of creation. Have fun along the journey.

Love,
Jyoti.