Long Term Success: The Power of Thinking PAST Your Goals
Roald Amundsen and crew admire their flag and tent at the South Pole, 1911
Look familiar?
Straightforward, sure. But it isn’t the way explorers look at their goals.
Scott’s party at the south pole.
Why? Because Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay didn’t summit Mt. Everest only to say,
“Well, we made it! I guess we just stay up here?”
Explorers have to make it home! Sometimes in worsening weather, with varying supply levels, injuries, and—most of all—altered mental states.
Can you imagine conducting research in Antartica for over a year, making a hellish trip to the South Pole (the very public reason for the trip and all its funding) and finally getting there only to see another country’s flag marking the spot?
“When Scott reached the Pole only to find that Amundsen had been there a month before him, his distress was not that of a schoolboy who has lost a race. I have described what it had cost Scott and his four companions to get to the Pole, and what they had still to suffer in returning until death stopped them…The moment Scott saw the Norwegian tent he knew that he had nothing to tell that was not already known…The Polar Journey was literally laid waste: that was the shock that staggered them.”
- Apsley Cherry-Garrard, expedition team member
Unlike a traditional plan, here is the there-and-back explorer’s plan:
See what happens when you place the pinnacle achievement in the middle?
Like Robert Falcon Scott, any decisions within acceptable risk that led up to the pinnacle achievement are now compounded and can derail even the most confident plans when macro influences change (like being pinned down by unimaginable weather conditions).
In real world terms:
People fail long-term because they don’t spend enough time thinking beyond reaching their pinnacle achievement.
Unsuccessful business leaders don’t spend enough time on innovation (change) integration as they do the business innovation itself. Or, how to adapt should they not hit their goal in time, or fail completely.
Parents—how many times have you gotten your kids to do something once only to find it harder or impossible the next time? (My hand is raised.)
Benefits of shifting your pinnacle achievement to the middle of your plan:
You won’t invest all of your mental energy in achieving the flashy goal that isn’t really the pinnacle you think it is.
You’ll think more about implementation of the plan, how changes will affect you, your family, your colleagues, whomever, which will highlight obstacles to adoption.
You’ll focus more on the impact of the achievement instead of the goal itself. This is shown to be much more psychologically powerful over the long haul—and for goals that are really important, they’re usually more difficult to achieve than expected anyway. Try, try again.
You’ll come back around to the “why.” Why are we going through this? The ability to impart the “why?” into whomever you’re leading will add a transformational element to the endeavor. What change will it affect?
You’ll consider the mental shifts in your team whether or not you achieve the goal. You’ll plan accordingly to either keep from becoming complacent, or have a fallback plan and moral boost at the ready to get back on track.
What else could you gain by thinking about your pinnacle achievement like an explorer?
For a deeper dive: