Outcome Goals Vs. Process Goals

A Primer on S.M.A.R.T. goals and how to enjoy them!

I have been working with S.M.A.R.T. Goals for years. A S.M.A.R.T. goal is one in which you develop and create parameters of goals so that they become more productive.

In essence, S.M.A.R.T. goal are:

• Specific- goal framed in specific, tangible results; answers “who, what, when, where, which and why?”

• Measurable- goal framed in precise time, amount or other units of measurement toward attainment; answers “how much?” “how many?” or “how fast?”

• Attainable- a goal must have a realistic time frame and correct, aligned action steps; answers “is it reasonable to accomplish X doing this much work within this amount of time?”

• Relevant- the goal is personal to you; answers “does this goal align with my values and perspectives?”

• Timely- set a realistic and ambitious deadline that both motivates you and helps prioritize action; answers “is this too easy or too hard?” and finds the sweet spot.

There are two types of goals, though.

There are outcome goals which rely on something happening, part of which relies on outside, uncontrollable factors. An example of this would be a goal to reign in new clients or make more sales. Although there are specific things one can do to encourage a better outcome or influence others to move in the direction of your desired outcome, in the end, the outcome still depends on the actions and decisions of others. “You can lead a horse to water…” Even weight loss can be an outcome goal. You can do all the “right” things and you still may have a metabolic issue that restricts your ability to control the amount of weight you might lose.

The other types of goals are process goals. A process goal sees the process of action as the goal. A process goal may be the goal of hitting milestones along the way to an outcome. They are completely within your control. For instance if your outcome goal is to increase sales, you could create a process goal of completing the tasks that could capture the attention of more customers. The capture of customers in this case would be the reason the goal is relevant to you. The goal itself might be to develop better automation tools through a series of processes and daily accomplishments in research and development to be done within a certain time frame. These automation tools might give you a leading edge over a competitor and make your service or product more user friendly and appealing to your desired customers.

In my case, this blog has been a process goal for me. I made a goal of getting an affirmative prayer written within this blog every day for the month of April. I know affirmative prayers are of huge benefit to me in my own life. I also have learned that to accomplish my goal, it helps to get enough sleep and have my day planned so that I have set aside time as a priority for writing. My deadline each day is at the end of the day. However, I noticed while doing these prayers that if I wait until the end of the day to write them, they end up getting published as rough drafts. When I try to publish before bed, I am so tired that, try as I may to edit, I end up embarrassed that I missed key words or typos that I overlooked in my exhaustion. I’ve learned as I am working on this goal to make the time assigned for the work earlier in the day when I possess more focus and attention to detail.

At some point last week, I started contemplating the idea of having paid subscriptions to my blog as an outcome goal. Yes, you get to see behind the curtain here. Last week Monday, I set the intention to get one paid subscriber by the end of the week. I’m telling you this so you can see how outcome goals kind of fuck with your head.

To accomplish my outcome goal of getting one paid subscriber, I added the paid subscription automation to my blog. I set up a separate account with a company that does the Substack subscriber automation. Then, I linked my bank account to that service. I am ready to receive. My next step was to present my blog in more places, sharing it anywhere applicable on social media so it could be visible to potential subscribers. I also shared the reason to becoming a paying subscribe openly. My blog is a great resource and value to a lot of people. I have a large consistent readership of each post I make. I may not be able to keep sharing consistently if I have to focus my efforts elsewhere to earn an income. Like electricity or water utilities, this utility could all go away if the bills don’t get paid. Last, I contemplated what greater value I could provide in my blog. I offered to make my affirmative prayer service more personalized to those with specific requests. I suggested readers could contact me with any situation they wanted a powerful affirmative prayer about. I would then create an anonymous prayer free of charge for them in my blog addressing their specific circumstance. It’s a win/win scenario as I have more content, and you get a prayer about a specific elevating resolution to your struggles or circumstances.

Did I accomplish all the processes? Yes.

Did I lose the focus of my true intent with my blog and get salesy? Yes.

Did I get a single paying subscriber and meet my outcome goal? No.

But, I managed to actually lose 2 free subscribers. Yes, yes, I did.

Did I feel a sense of accomplishment for all the processes I gained this week? No. Even after turning my focus to the processes I got done and the huge gains I made in only a week, I’m still feeling disappointed and deflated.

Now, I could stew on this venture being a net loss in my intended outcome, or I can focus on the processes rather than the outcome of numbers and see it as a net win. I got my blog out to more people. My viewership has gone up. My automation is completely set up for when people do subscribe. The offer is open to find out more of what people want prayers for. These are all big wins.

Process goals ultimately lead to enjoyment of the process and further motivation to move forward toward one’s goals in confidence.

The issue with outcome goals is that they undermine the effort. If I had a weight loss outcome goal where I started a new routine of eating no sugar and I stuck to it, I should be glad that on top of meeting my process goal of giving up sugar, I also got past all my sugar cravings. I am healthier. The scale might not go down right away. It might not go down at all. What I achieved was still a massive win, though. Objectively speaking, giving up sugar in most western cultures is a gargantuan accomplishment. Unfortunately, though, if my focus was on the numbers on the scale, I would be disappointed and possibly give up or go back to old unhealthy behaviors.

In my case, subscribers and things beyond my control are a waste of time and attention for me to be guessing about. I don’t even understand what motivates each individual who unsubscribes. People could have not liked the word “god” or “prayer.” They might have been put off by the amount of emails they can’t keep up with cluttering up their inbox. They could have felt I was too salesy for an entire week. Guessing other people’s motivations gets me nowhere. The best thing for my blog is to stick to my vision and values. Sure, my pride is hurt, and at that, I am left feeling less motivated about implementing that much effort in my blog this week. Strict focus on outcome goals is not my jam. Lesson learned.

But the outcome goal did inspire the process goals. If I had left the outcome goal in the can, I might never have worked so aggressively and constructively on my processes in one week. There must be a balance.

There are still advancements I can make toward my long term vision for my life in service. They are completely in my control. There are myriad ways I can be of service through my writing and more ways I can be compensated for the value I provide. Objectively speaking, I made some great gains in a single week on both fronts while accomplishing other goals for my homeschooling and while achieving major steps forward on my boundaries course.

This week, I have already obviously fiddled with my blog appearance. I think I made it gentler on the eyes. I spoke with one of my mentors who provided some perspective on what he does with his blog. I am getting more thumbnails to accompany my posts. You readers love pictures. They aren’t just for kids, I guess.

My next focus is pairing my blog with audio content. I will be reading each post to you so you can listen to this blog while driving, working out or gardening. I always listen to podcasts while I garden. I believe adding an audio feature this week will make my blog more “reader” friendly. Also, my voice sounds sexy AF.

My S.M.A.R.T. goal for this week is a process goal.

I will learn to use the podcast tools in Substack to record myself reading my blogs. I will do what it takes to get this feature automated. This week, I will spend an hour each day on training to use the Substack podcast tool, looking into also linking YouTube videos where I read aloud and planning a daily activity for my kids to enjoy so I can devote the quiet space of an hour to make clear, studio quality recordings every day for the foreseeable future. This makes my goal extremely SPECIFIC and MEASURABLE.

I intend to go back and read through all my previous posts. This is an added incentive to make all my past work more accessible. This is part of my “why” and aligns this week’s goal with my long term vision and values to be a vlogger and inspirational teacher which makes it ATTAINABLE. I won’t lose motivation. As an added bonus, I am sharing my goal here and now which makes me accountable for my win or loss this week to all my readers.

If I put my mind to an hour per day on this feature, I will be able to make it work by Saturday night (technologically challenged as I may be). My long term goal is ultimately to build up my vlogging and podcasting. As previously stated, it adds an extra feature for my listening “readers.” This makes my goal RELEVANT.

Adding the time block to my schedule and the ability to my skillset by Saturday night at midnight will be somewhat ambitious. However, this is well within my abilities. This makes my process goal perfectly TIMELY.

So, now you’ve seen behind the scenes of how I develop and use S.M.A.R.T. process goals as well as how to implement outcome goals to inspire process goals and to ensure efficiency.

I hope this has been a great primer for anyone wanting to learn about S.M.A.R.T. goals and to understand how to use outcome goals to create and prioritize (what I believe are superior) process goals.

If this post speaks to you, be sure to subscribe for regular inspirational posts. Please share this post with a friend who will benefit from learning to implement S.M.A.R.T. Process goals and outcome goals. If you feel you received a value today, please become a paying subscriber. I thank you in advance for all of your support.