It is striking when people have championship-level goals but don’t exhibit championship-level behaviors.

There's a fundamental misalignment when the person someone wants to become is orders of magnitude away from (1) the actions they are already taking or (2) the actions they are willing to take.

Order of magnitude: an exponential change of plus or minus 1 in the value of a quantity or unit

Here are two recent examples:

• A high school football team wrote their top goal for the season: “Win a state championship”. They then proceeded to complain about the lack of water bottles filled at practice by the underclassmen. There is an action of magnitude difference here. Halfway through a season, championship-level teams have already addressed and consistently solved for filled water bottles. Instead, championship teams are focused on film study of the opponent and conversations about how to effectively motivate the team. The aligned actions (film and motivation) are sufficient to create the necessary leverage that gives the team a chance to win a championship.
• A friend and colleague envisioned the larger impact she wants to make with c-suite leaders of large companies. She lamented about how people in her local online community weren't listening to her powerful message. Her complaint is an order of magnitude away from the desired impact that she wants to make. Instead, aligned action may be honing her writing in a weekly blog over the next year with the goal of submitting 10 articles to Forbes or HBR (read by her target audience, major business leaders) by the end of the next calendar year. In this case, the action taken is in alignment with the desired result.

Here’s a little doodle for you visual folks.

By the way… this isn't weird. And we all do this.

There are three common underlying causes:

1. Lack of Awareness (OR The Zoomed-In Fallacy) - Often, we aren’t aware we are making a mountain out of a molehill. Hyperbolic discounting (a common bias) states that we often attribute more energy to what is in our immediate short-term purview. In other words, we can't see that the action we’re taking isn’t as big as we think it is because we’re presently IN IT.
   • The fix: Zoom out and identify the most mission-critical elements of success. Keep the action - cut all extra activity.
2. Lack of Information (OR Innocent Ignorance) - In many cases, we aren't informed about how to create the leverage necessary for the result. When we are still a beginner at something, we depend on those more experienced to tell us what to study, practice, and learn. We read the books, take the courses, and use others’ expertise to determine the action we should be focusing on.
   • The fix: Feedback. Not one time. Not 10x. But iterative feedback enough times to spark aligned action.
3. Lack of Motivation (OR Deceptive Desires) - We want to want things all over. I want to want to be a daily meditator… but do I really? Desire works linearly, not at right angles. If we aren’t clear about what we want, the level of action wanes and will fade after the flame of initial excitement goes out.
   • The fix: Get clear about what you actually want. Learn to differentiate between your true desires vs. others’ desires for you. You can ask yourself the question, “Is this mine or someone else’s?”.

Bottom line: There is a price of admission that we must pay in order to be great at anything. We can make our lives a little bit easier by identifying the actions of magnitude that build exponential leverage or reduce drastic friction.

Practices for You and Your Team

• Reflect on the following:
  • I want to do/be X. What do people like X do routinely that I do on occasion (or never)? Am I willing to do what they do?
  • What is the level of skill, energy, or risk required to be X?
  • What problems would you have if you were playing a bigger game? What problem are you stressing about now that you’ll be laughing about later?
• Interview or research five people who are doing what you want to be doing - take note of their skills, mindset, and habits. Look for commonalities.
  • Note: biographies and autobiographies can be great for this because they give you an insider view into a person's life.
• Apply the Pareto Principle: Analyze the 20% of what you do that provides an 80% output. Focus on cutting out the other 80% of input.
• Journal about the problems that you’ll be solving when you become the person you want become. Choose one problem and begin solving it now.

In closing… Who are you to have the audacity to think you wouldn’t be challenged on your way to becoming?

That last one is rhetorical…. I just like that one ;)

Bring the Juice,

Seb