Photo: carlosphotos
Results matter.
If your efforts never get positive results, life would be pretty challenging.
I once read a blog post that made me think about results and how we focus on them. It was about the Permian Panthers High School Football team of “Friday Night Lights” fame and their magical championship year. Their hard work not only resulted in an unlikely state football championship, but it put them on a pedestal. It made them rock stars for a brief period of their lives.
Many never recovered. Life went downhill after that. Nothing could match the experience of being put on a pedestal and winning the ultimate prize.
The problem with focusing too much on results is that the highs can be really high, and the lows can be really low. And if you have an experience like they did at Permian you may never reach that zenith again.
So here’s my take on results.
Focus on effort more than results.
I used to run races like 5K’s, half-marathons and even marathons. What I found was I loved the training. The races were kind of anti-climactic. In fact, they were kind of a hassle. I did find running in front of cheering people was kind of cool. But what I realized was how much more I enjoyed the training than I did the actual race. So now I train even though I don’t run races. I learned to love the effort more than the results.
The corollary to this is that it’s about the journey, not the destination. If you’re always focused on the destination, once you arrive, you’ll need a new destination to keep you going and to give you that jolt of excitement. In life, you never really arrive.
On the other hand, when you focus on effort, the little things keep you going. When I learned to play the violin, it was slow going. But every time I noticed that I got a little better, that I could play a song with better tone and/or fewer mistakes, it excited me. Sure, those are results. But they’re not destinations, they’re milestones that encourage consistent effort.
I learned to like sitting down to practice, because like running, putting in the time and the effort was a reward of its own.
And like I said, results matter. But how you look at them is even more important.
Have a Zen-like detachment from the outcome.
If you focus too much on the outcome, then poor results have the potential to devastate you. You may come back from it, but it will take longer than if you are less worried about the outcome.
On the other hand, when you focus on the effort, without worrying about the outcome, you can celebrate positive results without them taking over your life the way the Permian state championship did. And if the results aren’t so good you can shake it off. You figure out what you’ve learned and get better the next time. There’s no such thing as a failure, unless you don’t learn anything.
As I shared in this blog post, University of Alabama football coach, Nick Saban, would respond to his players’ failures with, “So what? Now what?” The focus is on what can be learned from poor results and how one can productively move forward.
One of my sons pitched a complete game in a state high school baseball championship game. His team lost 2-1. The opposing pitcher had a 90+ mph fastball and had a scholarship to a Division I college. After the game I told him how proud I was. He didn’t want to hear it. He was mad about losing.
I was focused on his effort and the resulting strong performance. He was focused on the outcome of the game.
As a team player I get that. It wasn’t about how he performed but whether the team won or lost. But I think in the long run he has come to realize that he did everything he could to help his team win, and that’s what matters.
I sometimes hear football fans complain about how when their team loses their players go out in the middle of the field and laugh and joke with players of the opposing team. Fans think they should be more upset with the outcome.
But at the highest levels so much of it is about preparation and effort, about the journey not the destination. They literally leave it all out on the field and live with the results. Sure, they don’t like losing, but they don’t allow it to take them down emotionally. They learn from it and move on.
I’ve used a lot of examples from sports. But how you view effort and outcome matters. What are the results you are working toward? Higher attendance? Fighting injustice? Better health? Better relationships?
Whatever it is, focus on the effort. Learn from the outcomes. Stay present in the journey. Then, whatever the results, you’ll be able to make a difference in the world. This is what non-anxious leaders do.
Jack Shitama
The Rev. Jack Shitama is an ordained minister in The United Methodist Church and currently serves as the Director of the Center for Vital Leadership for UMC churches in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Delaware.