The Goal Informs the Process
Use the big goal to design the process, then forget the goal and work the process.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Jeff Hayden argues that a big goal's real job is to help you design the process that gets you there, not to be stared at daily. Once you have translated the goal into a staged program, all you focus on is doing whatever today's step requires. If the process is designed so that effort guarantees progress, you get to succeed and feel good every single day. The goal is a direction tool; the process is what you actually live inside.
Origin
Hayden articulated this in conversation with Hala, using marathon training and Hala's own building of a marketing agency and podcast as illustrations of goals broken down into daily doable steps.
Core principles
- 01You still need a big goal, but only to design the process.
- 02Once the process is built, focus only on doing what today requires.
- 03A well-designed process guarantees success if you put in the effort.
- 04Daily completion gives daily success and daily motivation.
How to run it
- 1
Set the big goal
Name the ambitious end state, such as running a marathon or building an agency.
Pro tip The goal only needs to be clear enough to reverse-engineer from.
- 2
Derive the process from the goal
Break the goal into the stages, endurance, and skills required, using an existing program or expert if one exists.
Pro tip Plenty of people have already mapped programs for common goals; borrow one.
- 3
Work only today's step
Ask 'what's tomorrow?' and do exactly that day's task, whether it's a mile-and-a-half run or a recovery day.
Pro tip Design the process so that effort basically guarantees success, then you win every day.
Watch out Don't get too excited and jump ahead to the final target; put your head back down.
In the wild
The marathon is the goal, but you back it up into a six-month plan of specific daily runs. Tomorrow is simply a mile-and-a-half run you can check off.
→ Feeling successful each day stacks into the endurance to eventually run 26 miles.
Hala didn't wake up with 35 employees; she knew she wanted a marketing agency and podcast and broke it into what she could do each day.
→ The stacked daily wins built the agency and podcast and made the hard work easier because she saw a path.
Common mistakes
Focusing on the goal instead of the process
Measuring your one mile against the marathon makes you feel bad and quit; the goal should recede once the process exists.
Is it for you?
Best for
People pursuing a large skill- or endurance-based goal that can be broken into a staged program.
Not ideal for
Highly uncertain or exploratory ventures where the path cannot be laid out in advance.
From the transcript
“your big goal is just there to help you design the process that you would use in order to get there”
“so the goal informs the process and then all you worry about is am I doing what I need to do each step of the…”
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