Committing to the work
Remember the post about tasks. vs. outcomes? I’ve been think about another factor - process. Process, or I think the more accurate word is journey, refers to what you do to get from tasks to outcomes. If your outcome is say, getting a book published, then the tasks could be rewriting draft after draft, and the journey is everything in between - the planning, the emotions, the frustration, the learning, the growth. I once heard the quote, “Music is the space between the notes”. One way to think about the journey is that it’s the space between the tasks.
So where should your focus be among the three factors? What do you need to get right?
@daniel_wong_ writes in reference to that post about tasks and outcomes:
“There’s clearly a lot of value in focusing on the outcome—after all, that’s what people/the world values. At the same time, however, if you want to truly experience life and live fully in the moment, you have to forget a bit about the outcome and enjoy the process.”
We’ve all heard the importance of living in the moment. It’s the journey, not the destination, etc. I’m sure we’d all be happier if we learned to appreciate the moment as we experience it.
I’ve been thinking specifically about acts where you can only care about the journey, you must only care about the journey. I was part of a larger discussion about spirituality recently, and someone made the remark that the goal is to commit to doing the work, without attachment to the outcome.
It’s not the first time I had heard the advice, but I was reminded why that concept had a profound effect on me. I think of all the things we do where we don’t control all the factors. That’s actually… everything we do. Whether you close a deal, whether you win a game, whether you land your dream job at the end of a long interview process, whether you get into your school of choice, whether a major decision goes your way, whether your efforts, feelings, gestures are reciprocated.
You see, the work that is really worth doing must be done this way. Do the work without attachment to the outcome. It’s not that you don’t care to do it well. You care tremendously to do it well. You do everything you can to make sure it goes well. But you also acknowledge that some things are simply beyond your control. It’s balancing the tension between caring intensely that the work is done well and letting the outcomes be whatever they may be. It’s separating what you can change from what you can’t, accurately and objectively, and doing the work anyway.
Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this in the context of doing works of creative genius. In her TED talk (to this day the best one out there), she says, “I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job.” You can’t always expect to create works of genius that will be runaway bestsellers, but you can always show up. In so many situations, that’s all you can do really.
So it’s good to enjoy the journey. Get your tasks to align with your outcomes. But committing to the journey, over tasks and over outcomes, that’s the holy grail.
