Process or outcome?

Farming and gardening are two different things. (Image by No-longer-here)

These days, I’m putting a lot of work into LinkedIn.

Perhaps it’s a waste of time. I don’t know yet. But here’s what I do know: The more people I meet, the more interesting my life gets and the more opportunities I come across. So I’m up for a bit of exploration.

I can and do enjoy the process for its own sake. What interferes, in the midst of spending seven minutes typing out a three-paragraph comment on a stranger’s post, is the thought that maybe this is pointless.

I’m familiar with that thought. It has shown up in my music making, my knitting, and in the middle of painting a dark teal accent wall.

The thought is no big deal if I’m feeling confident. It can be ruinous if I’m already feeling discouraged.

And it can be supremely helpful if I actually meant to focus on results and got sidetracked by the virtuous feeling of putting in effort.

Sometimes the entire point of what we’re doing is simply to try. To grow and learn from doing. To have an experience for the sake of having it.

And sometimes, it’s to get a job done. I want to get my living room rug vacuumed in less than seven minutes no matter how much fun I’m having doing it. And if, at the end of the seven minutes, the rug doesn’t look good, my mission has not been accomplished even if I gained enlightenment and became one with the universe during that time.

Many of us start out wanting to enjoy the process but get caught up in the results. It can ruin crafting, sports, music, content creation, relationships — everything.

But the flip side doesn’t get talked about as much: What happens when we’re looking for a specific outcome but end up measuring our results by how hard we are working instead of against that specific outcome?

I see this a lot in business. It’s like trying to get an A for effort when there’s no one to give it. If I do the same thing over and over again, not enjoying the process but thinking that I’m virtuous for continuing to grind, I’m just going to be frustrated.

For example, when people post to a million different social media channels without seeing engagement or growth on any of them, they might stay so busy that they barely notice. They have gotten distracted by the process. They’re spending hours creating and posting content for nothing.

They’re not expecting results, so they’re not getting any.

On the other hand, when you start expecting results for your hard work, everything changes. You refuse to keep doing the same thing if you’re not seeing an impact.

I believe that a focus on outcome can live in harmony with a focus on the process. We just have to know which one we’re choosing. Periodically, we can evaluate to make sure that what we’re doing still fits what we want.

The time for me to evaluate the results of my LinkedIn experiment and adjust accordingly is each Monday morning.

The time for me to evaluate my board game win-loss record or the ROI of time spent with my family is never.

I find it beneficial to be intentional with each activity by deliberately choosing a focus on either process or outcome. I can be effective when I want to be and simply appreciate the journey the rest of the time. It’s a peaceful way to live.

Hat tip to Sara for inspiring this one with a comment on TikTok!