“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how will you go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”- Tom Landry (Hall of fame football coach)
Growing up I always found myself setting high goals, which I always failed to achieve effectively. I always felt I was aiming for the right thing but could not achieve because I was always fixated on the outcome and did not assess the complexities in the process. This could be as simple as solving problems from Fourier Transformation; my goals were more focused on finishing up the Unit by a particular time rather than focusing on understanding different functions and type of transformation.
I realized I had to pay more attention towards the process and needed to set intermediate milestones to ensure exhaustiveness. This helped me prioritize my action items and look into all aspects in a holistic manner.
As I joined my First job as a decision scientist following approach didn’t just help plan my day better but it also helped me collaborating with different teams. Further as I moved up the corporate ladder, while setting team or project level goals, I started collaborating with a larger circle to account for various complexities in the problem.
I believe focusing on the process also increases the sustainability of the solution or an analysis.