We, humans, seem to love setting goals and objectives for ourselves. Particularly challenging ones. There’s a real satisfaction that comes from setting out to accomplish something, putting in a lot of effort and work, and seeing those efforts pay off through the successful achievement of that goal or objective. In general, I believe it’s a really positive practice. This type of big goal setting occurs in both our professional and personal lives. Professional goals might include striving for a promotion, attempting to hit a really big sales target, releasing an amazing new product feature that beats out the competition, earning an award for a song you produced, etc. etc. Personal goals might include finishing a 100 km bike ride, learning a new language, completing a PhD, having kids, visiting every national park, etc. etc.

There is one slightly risky way of approaching big goals and objectives though, which is to expect the singular act of achievement to result in some type of universal salvation. I’m being a little hyperbolic, but I’m guessing most people have experienced some type of this self-talk, even if a little less extreme:

• If I get promoted, finally I’ll be happy.
• If I hit my savings goal of $[x], finally I’ll have enough.
• If I release that amazing new feature, we’ll beat the competition.
• Once the COVID lockdown is lifted, my stress and anxiety will go away (circa 2021…)
• If I get married, our challenges will go away.
• If I finish my degree, my grandparents will respect me.

The reality of course, is that even achieving an extremely lofty, difficult, and amazing goal, rarely results in some type of panacea. As a result, when we obsess over the goal, and spend a huge amount of our attention and energy focused on it, we run the risk of setting ourselves up for disappointment. And depending how much stock we’ve put into the importance of that goal, it can be pretty devastating. “I got the promotion… and I still hate my job. What’s going on?”

This concept always conjures up the following image (and personal experience) for me: you’re running a race, and it’s really challenging. You’ve put what feels like your maximum effort to get yourself to the finish line. Then, when you think you’re 100 metres away from the end, you realize you misread the last marker, and you still have 3 km to go. You’re devastated, and struggle to finish the race, because you’ve hinged all your efforts on getting to what you believed was the finish line. The obsession with the endpoint, has potentially robbed you of your ability to succeed.

It’s important not to overly obsess about the endpoints. And why the cliché phrase exists, “the journey is more important than the destination”. If you can find genuine satisfaction in the efforts and energy you put into all the things that lead up to that endpoint (i.e., training, working hard, practicing, planning, etc.), you inevitably build more resilience and are better prepared to handle setbacks, or a (naturally) shifting goal post. Who cares if you didn’t get the award? You know you vastly improved your skills.

I have always struggled against the forces of procrastination when there’s a deadline or work project that is long dated in nature. This was particularly tough in the early years of University, where you’re essentially reliant on self-motivation and drive to study and complete your work assignments. Despite having decent visibility into assignment due dates and exam dates well in advance, I nearly always waited until the last minute to pull something together or cram for an exam.

On the other hand, I’ve always excelled at working hard in short bursts, particularly leading up to an urgent deadline. Working in Investment Banking and Private Equity were the ideal conditions for me. Most work assignments tend to be short-term and/or high-pressure in nature, so there isn’t as much of an opportunity for procrastination. You’re forced to deliver work towards a hard deadline, and there are severe consequences to missing those deadlines. Let’s say you’re reviewing an investment in a company. Often, you’re competing with multiple other investment firms, and working towards a pre-set deadline to submit a bid or purchase offer. You can’t show up late or ask for extra time (“Oops, sorry”). It’s simply not an option.

As a result, it was a big transition joining Avanti and the corporate world. Not to suggest there are no high pressure, short-term deadlines for projects in the corporate world (there are), but on a relative basis, the consequences of delay are less severe, and the nature of the work seems to lend itself more to sustained long-term efforts to be successful. It’s much more of a marathon than a series of sprints. As a result, I’ve really had to train myself to be better at pushing forward projects with long-dated deadlines and less severe consequences of delay. I’ve found it’s primarily a mental game. Once you get into the work, the reality is often much easier than we make it out to be in our thoughts.  

Over the years, I’ve gotten significantly better at managing this. A big part of it is practice. But the important realization I’ve had, is how real the mental cost and burden is of continually thinking about the work you need to do before doing it. Let’s say your boss tells you she needs a PowerPoint presentation prepared and you have three weeks to complete it. If you used to be like me, you would wait 2 weeks and 4 days before starting to pull it together; however, over the course of those two+ weeks, you probably spend several hours thinking about the work, even if you haven’t started on it. In any given week, the time spent thinking about the things you need to do can outweigh the amount of time it takes to actually do them.

Nike really nailed it with their slogan, “Just Do It”. If you can ‘Just Do It’, you’ll relieve much of the wasted thought exercise of thinking about it. Our CFO has a similar, great quote she shared with me, which is “Love it so you can leave it”. The sooner you complete the daunting task, the faster you can leave it behind. Keeping this in mind has helped change my perspective and been a powerful motivator to getting things done, earlier (even if it’s still an uphill battle).

I’ve found this is equally as true regarding tough conversations, whether with employees, your boss, or a peer, as it is with completing work projects. Both have a real mental cost of delay and the sooner you can get to it, the sooner you can leave it behind.