The Problem With Focusing Too Much On Just Results - Think Deep

The Problem With Focusing Too Much On Just Results

It’s one of the “hardcore” principles of self improvement:

Results are the only thing that matters so do whatever you have to do to get them.

Makes sense right?

Enough of the mental dilly dally. Just do it. Show me the results. Just win baby.

But there’s a big problem with that mentality.

The easiest example we have today to illustrate this is Wall Street and their love of quarterly earnings. To them, that’s all that matters. Just have good numbers so you can boost the stock price and increase shareholder value.

If the numbers aren’t going to look good, then the company should cut costs, which is code for fire employees, increase margins, cut corners, roll out new products just for the sake of padding numbers, etc.

The thing about this strategy is that it works – at least for a little while.

Numbers look good, stock goes up, Wall Street is happy.

But herein lies the problem that’s so obvious, but most people don’t want to acknowledge it for some reason.

Focusing too much on just results is WAY too short sighted.

It violates the principles of holding a long term view and patience.

If a company decides to pay their employees well, spend money on infrastructure, research and development, wait until they release a great product and not rush something out with a lot of bugs, then of course the quarterly numbers are not going to look good.

But what they’re doing is building a foundation.

Loyalty among employees, trust among customers, great products, and the impact of this will not be apparent immediately. It usually takes a long time for the success of this to show.

But nobody wants to wait.

Just make the numbers look good NOW they say, at the expense of everything else.

But again, it won’t work long term because nothing of any lasting value is being built.

It’s like focusing on making the outside of a car look good instead of taking the time to make sure everything inside the car is being built well so that it will last for a long time.

Sure you may get some initial sales with the flashy, razzle dazzle of the exterior of a car, but when it starts becoming unreliable, those are the only sales that company will get.

If a company started with the interior first, made a car that was reliable, even though it wasn’t flashy, got that reputation of reliability, THEN they could devote some time to the exterior and have a killer combo of a flashy AND reliable car and make even more money.

Once you’re riding this “results only” wave, it’s hard to get off it. There’s too much to lose now so you have to keep doing whatever you have to do to make the numbers look good, but it won’t last.

People realize this deep down but they still keep doing it.

Why?

Fear.

If they don’t play the results game, their stock price goes down, and oh no, all hell will break loose.

They can’t afford to wait to build a foundation.

But that’s sort of like building a house out of straw. Yes, for the immediate time being, it provides shelter but what will happen when a storm hits?

Better to build a house out of bricks, even if it takes a longer time.

This applies to our individual lives as well. Some people are so result oriented in terms of losing weight, that they’re willing to try dangerous supplements or procedures just to get to their number, instead of taking the time to build the foundation of learning to eat right and exercise.

Yes, the results will be slow when taking the time to build that foundation but in the long run, it’s better.

Not only do you learn how to eat right and exercise, you develop the HABITS for doing so, habits that you will use for the rest of your life that will increase the quality of your life.

You’ll learn discipline, make new friends at the gym, have more energy, more confidence, etc., all of which could NOT have been gotten had you gone the results oriented way.

And if you think about it, those are the things that matter. Those important habits. Those are the things worth cultivating.

The results you wanted initially will be a natural long term byproduct of you developing those great habits.

It takes a lot of courage to not fall for the results oriented game.

It’s tempting because the payoff is so immediate.

But it takes a person with a long term view, a person with vision and patience, to stand up against the pressure of short term results, and to keep building, even when it seems like nothing is happening, to create something of quality and value that lasts.

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