Philosophy Archives • Mitchell Earl

Succeeding Along Specific Dimensions

Very little in life is as fulfilling as achieving success along a specific dimension you set out to conquer . But the flip side is that this is also one of the most challenging things.

Defining Success Is Only Half the Battle

For example, let’s say you set out to grow your business.

Growing a business in and of itself is challenging. Choosing to define that as a goal is only a fraction of the battle. Defining how much growth, and along what metrics will move you ever so slightly closer, as well.

But what makes this infinitely more difficult is figuring out the required levers to pull in order to actually achieve the desired growth.

Chances are even if you hit your desired growth target the metrics you defined probably didn’t line up perfectly the way you thought they should in order to succeed.

Nebulous Success & Happy “Accidents”

To some degree, success along any dimension you specify will always be somewhat nebulous.

Not because it’s impossible to figure out what currently known activities may lead to your success. But because it’s entirely impossible to predict all possible contributors to your success that are currently unknown.

These “unknown contributors” will feel like happy accidents when they happen. But they rarely happen through inertia alone.

In fact, they often seem to spring forth only after, and as a direct byproduct of, exhaustive effort toward a goal. Even when those happy accidents seem to appear entirely out of the blue, independent of your efforts.

Which only increases the level of satisfaction when you begin to experience initial success.

The Combined Power of Labor + Intellect

When happy accidents begin to occur, it can feel like the universe is participating in a grand conspiracy on your behalf.

And the truly beautiful thing about this is remembering that it’s not actually random. But the byproduct of your deliberate progress toward a definite aim.

When you set your sights on a specific target, and do everything in your power to advance toward it, you can be confident that your success is not accidental at all. But through your own agency – the combined power of your labor and intellect to shape the world into your vision for it.

Winning in Different Domains

Some of us are born with a competitive spirit. Some of us are not. Then others among us are born with a double-dose of it.

I got the double dose.

When you grow up with a competitive spirit, you view the world as a game board to be dominated.

You don’t care about the game. You only care about winning.

That kind of spirit to win will drive you to win at all costs. But it won’t help you figure out which games are worth playing.

Because, it’s true, some games are not worth playing at all. It’s only the games that are worth playing that are worth playing well.

And figuring out which games are worth playing is perhaps the most important game of all.

Discarding Games

If you’re anywhere near as competitive as I am, eventually you’ll come across games that bore you.

Perhaps because you’re not naturally gifted at them. Or perhaps because you encounter a worthier-than-usual foe who absolutely decimates you to the point of forfeiting all future exhibitions in a particular domain. Or probably more likely because you grow bored in some games as your interest in other games expands.

When any of the above happen, if you stand any chance at achieving longevity as a competitor in any domain of interest, it’s worthwhile to discard some games – in the interest of increasing your fitness in the new game.

Because you can’t be “the best” at everything, discarding games that you no longer care to play (for whatever reason), allows you to allocate your attention and resources to higher-priority games. This reallocation of resources will allow you to compete more seriously.

And in fact, becoming a more serious competitor in one domain often increases your fitness in other domains, as well.

So, you should take seriously the idea of discarding low-priority games. In the interest of winning more games overall. Make a game of it, if you must.

Games Worth Playing

As you grow older, you’ll carry with you an internal sense of your win record.

On net, you’re either a winner or a loser in your own eyes. (If you view yourself the latter, I’d encourage you to find a domain you can win in fast.)

You’ll also likely have a good sense of the domains you excel in – and a particularly strong lingering soreness about those domains which you do not excel in.

But hopefully, you’ll also gain a sense about those games which carry the highest stakes.

Therein lies the first clue about which games to play.

Games carry different stakes.

High-stakes games can be thrilling. They often present major upside for winners, too. But be warned. Because some high-stakes games offer minimal upside (if any at all), though certain major downside for losers.

Which is the second clue.

Avoid high-stakes games with minimal upside and major downside risks.

For instance, grabbing an uncaged tiger by its tail is a form of a high-stakes game with major downside risk. And unless you happen to be attacked by a tiger, you’re probably best avoiding the encounter altogether. If it’s unavoidable, then fight like hell.

You’ll receive many invitations to many games in many different domains. You can’t play them all. But you can’t avoid them all forever either.

So you’ve got to choose. Here’s another clue.

Figure out which games you certainly want to avoid.

Here’s a short list of examples.

If possible, avoiding playing games with the criminal justice system. Or with the legal system altogether. And the IRS. Don’t play dice with war lords, drug dealers, or loan sharks. Avoid boxing matches you can’t win. Don’t challenge a cheetah to a footrace. And never, never battle wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line.

It’s also worth taking inventory of the games you’re A) already playing and B) cannot avoid.

Which is the next clue:

Some games are unavoidable.

You’ve got to learn how to stay alive. That is maybe the most fundamental game. Though there’s really no winning in this game so much as there is only losing. And it’s a game we’ll all inevitably lose. But best to play as a worthy competitor while you can.

Still, in order to avoid losing (for as long as you can), you’ll also be forced to engage in other games. Like learning how to provide for yourself, how to earn an income or to hunt, kill, grow, and prepare your own food. And so on.

Some games are absolutely necessary in order to continue playing at all.

Which brings up the last clue (for now):

Some games necessitate others.

If you get married, for instance, you’ll have to learn how to co-exist peacefully. If you go into business, you’ll have to figure out how to manage finances. (Of course, you could avoid both of those. But recognize that some games necessitate others.)

As you go continue through the game of life, it behooves you to learn the fundamentals of the games you’re aware of. And always be mindful of the games within the games – the new domains you’re forced into as a result of necessity of other games you’ve engaged in.

Emotional Re-Orientation vs. Post-Hoc Rationalization

In the adventure of life, you will inevitably encounter a fork in the road that forces you to choose a path.

The proper path won’t always be obvious. When this happens, you can roll the dice. Or you can put that big ol’ noggin’ to work.

Regardless how you proceed, you must act. Standing still at the fork is not an option.

Inevitably, you’ll also experience the whole spectrum of emotions.

Swings from fear to a false sense of certainty. The roller coaster of anxiety to determination. And on an on.

Your emotions can alert you to legitimate, potential threats. But they can also distract you.

Your reason can enable you to calculate and acknowledge risk. But if can also blind you to your own unarticulated concerns – or to the concerns of others around you.

You must pursue a marriage between these two faculties. If you are to survive.

In-synch, your emotions and reason converge into a superpower. Prioritizing one at the expense of the other creates wrinkles into the future, which must eventually be addressed (and if left unaddressed, will leave you exposed, even to the point of becoming crippled).

When you encounter the inevitable forks in the road, you must act.

You can do so blindly. Or you can do so deliberately.

If you make a decision without your proclivities fully on board, you create a future hurdle for yourself.

Post-hoc rationalization can only help you so much if your gut instincts disapprove of your decisions.

Similarly, you can only negotiate with your emotions so much.

How to Navigate Complexity

If you are to survive this world, you can’t be wholly ruled by your emotions. Just like you cannot fully ignore your emotions, either.

You must strike a balance.

One way to do this is by changing your behavior – act in such a way that you approve of yourself. So as to avoid any moral sanctions from your consience.

Still, it’s not a perfect solution. Because inevitably, you will still face challenges where competing priorities or values must be acknowledged.

Another way to proceed is to [attempt to] reorient your emotions to reason.

How can you reframe your situation so as to change your view of the circumstances?

This is not to say you should delude yourself to the truth or reality. (That won’t help either.)

But you do get a choice of your opinions of things, and you can alter your emotional responses – if you can alter your perception to a specific event or circumstance.

Good Destination, Bad Directions

I turn 30 today (happy birthday to me, right?). Aging tends to force reflection. It gives cause to think back on decisions – the good, the bad, and the ugly. If we’re smart, that reflection offers lessons to help us improve ourselves over time.

Here’s one big lesson I’ve been meditating on:

Having the proper destination in mind does not validate your route to it.

Life is a series of goals. We make subsequent decisions in relation to our goals. Often we do the best that we can with the information we have.

But we don’t always have the best information. Nor do we always have the best of intentions. (Thought even when we do have good intentions, sometimes we’re bad at selecting the proper means.)

Still, with our limited knowledge, we aim at the highest, best goals we can fathom (if we are wise), and we dedicate ourselves to manifesting those into reality.

Except we’re not always great at bringing our ideas to life. Not to the level of perfection we all likely aspire to.

We choose our goals. Then we choose the route that we believe is most likely to get us there. Hopefully, most efficiently.

Sometimes, though, we choose the right goal but the wrong route. Which makes it incredibly difficult to see our own errors.

It can often feel like “selecting your goal” is the most difficult part of personal development. But that’s rarely true. Choosing a target is easier than hitting it.

But when you take special care in selecting which targets to aim at with your scarce resources, and you finally determine one that’s worthwhile – it can give you a sense of absolution about the means you select for getting there.

Choosing a good destination does not let you off the hook for using bad directions, though.

Even honorable goals are overshadowed by unworthy means.

The work isn’t done once you choose your target. You must also take special care as you work toward it, to ensure that you’re not allowing a desirable “end” is to justify bad means.

Knowledge Proxies

The world continues to increase in complexity. On average, we’re poorly equipped to handle this.

Our iPhones and Google empower us to “fact check” and “research” on the fly. While non-stop streams of propaganda (oops – I mean social media) color our opinions.

I often wonder if our perception of knowledge deludes us to our ignorance.

For instance, I know that I’m still fascinated on a regular basis about how abysmally little I know about the world around me. Even the simple stuff. Including things I feel like I know a lot about.

It’s honestly incredible people don’t regularly break down from the sheer overload of complexity in our world.

But beyond my ability to ask other people and observe, I’m limited to my own experience. Maybe other people are much smarter than me. (If I was a dick, I’d add a line here, like “But I doubt it.”) Or maybe most people find bliss in ignorance.

Regardless of how other people experience the world, what chance does a guy like me (who wants to “win” at life) stand at maneuvering through all the complexity? Without wasting my best years sticking my nose inside every textbook within reach.

Facing Down Ignorance

One thing I’ve learned is that I don’t know much about much – even the stuff I think I know a lot about. Re-reading that sentence reminds me of the infamous Mark Twain quote:

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Mark Twain

But nobody likes to be a know-nothing (especially not me). So we do our best when we face situations where we risk exposing our incompetence.

There’s the “fake-it ’til you make it” crowd. Which I now consider myself expatriated from. Basically you just feign competence. Some people do this for posture’s sake. They’re not bothered by the truth of their own ignorance. Others do it to survive – believing firmly in their own ability to hustle and learn so fast they overcome their ignorance before they’re found out (this was me).

Either way, you can only fake it so many times before you’re eventually found out. This isn’t a long-term winning strategy, even if offers temporary gains.

Of course, there are other options too.

The abhorrent “I don’t know” camp comes to mind. This camp accepts the truth of reality agnostically. Whenever you encounter something novel, you admit the truth. “I don’t know.” Of course, that “I don’t know” could mean blind acceptance of your ignorance. Or it could be the fuel to your fire to acquire new information (this is the part of the camp I prefer to inhabit).

But we just can’t learn about everything. There’s simply not enough time.

So, how do we cope with an ever-increasingly complex world, with our ever-finite base of knowledge?

Here’s one potential solution: I like to call it the “knowledge proxy.”

The Knowledge Proxy

I want to tell you a story first before I tell you about knowledge proxies.

For those who don’t already know, one of my guilty pleasures is wine. I love it. Every aspect. I love to drink it. Smell it. Read about it. Learn about it. The history surrounding it. The drama of it. The scandals. The culture. The traditions. The formality. And maybe most of all is that wine demands its own pound of flesh from you before you can truly appreciate all that it has to offer. It’s one of those rare few things left in life that has an extremely high barrier to entry that even money can’t overcome.

Anyway, when I first fell in love with wine I knew very little about the subject. Which can be daunting. And expensive. But when you don’t have much money and you want to learn about something relatively pricey, you’ve got to learn how to place your bets effectively.

Which is exactly what I did when I made an accidental discovery. I take pictures of every bottle I drink that I enjoy. I take notes (even if only mental). At some point I noticed that two bottles I drank both carried the same note on the back – “Imported by Kermit Lynch.” (Who is a famous wine merchant, though I didn’t know it at the time.)

This became a beacon for me. When I didn’t know about a bottle and there was nothing around to help, rather than relying on my own limited supply of knowledge, I looked to the label. If I saw “Imported by Kermit Lynch” I read it as an endorsement – almost like insurance against buying a bad bottle.

It was not a perfect solution. But it did act as a filter. When you’re facing thousands of possible choices, sometimes all you need is a good filter. Rather than picking from among thousands, I found myself picking among dozens.

That’s a knowledge proxy.

Using Proxies to Navigate the World

Proxies, by definition, are simply a substitute. They do not fully protect you against your own ignorance. But they certainly can offer a hedge.

We all use them all the time already. Anytime we take a recommendation from someone. Or even when we rely on our own biases – after all, that’s really what biases are, anyway. They’re just shortcuts. Proxies for actual knowledge.

Proxies by themselves do not perfectly describe or define the world around us. But they can be useful in reducing the complexity enough that our simple ape brains can more effectively manage it.

But, just like anything else, proxies can be prone to error – especially if you’re using some other person’s opinion as a proxy for your own decision-making.

So tread with caution. Though here’s one tip, if I may.

Avoid Single Points of Failure

Having insufficient knowledge of a subject does not get you off the hook for making decisions. But it sure does increase the danger to you.

This is how people get taken advantage of. And if you’re a stupid person, I pity you. Unless of course, you’re stupid by choice. In which case, half of me envies you. And the other half wonders how you’ve survived this long.

Anyway, back to the point here.

Whenever you have insufficient knowledge, relying on a single proxy increases the risk of a bad decision. Because you’ve created a single point of failure.

I’ll repurpose the wine scenario to illustrate what I mean by this.

Let’s suppose for a moment that the “imported by” feature had been a bad proxy for selecting wine. Maybe I’d gotten lucky the first few times. What if I’d been wrong though, and more often than not it represented low-quality wines? That sure would’ve been sour grapes, huh?

While I my knowledge was limited, it sufficed. But as I learned more, I began to add additional layers of proxies.

Rather than rely solely on the “Imported by” proxy, I also began to catalogue the particular regions, grape varietals, and producers I enjoyed.

So I could confidently navigate a wine shop or wine menu by looking for multiple data points – multiple proxies.

If a bottle boasted, “Imported by” + “Desirable grape varietal” + “Region I’ve enjoyed”, then I could be reasonably confident about my selection – and thereby increase the bet I was willing to take (i.e. My willingness to spend more money on a particular bottle increases as my confidence in the selection does.)

The same thing is true in our day to day lives. This is the power of second opinions at work.

Proxies, by themselves, do not excuse us from responsibility for making decisions. They simply help us catalog the world around us when we don’t have all the information.

The more proxies you have, the more boldly you can navigate into uncharted territory. Of course, you can always supplement proxies with your own learnings, too.

But learning how to use proxies – and then layer multiple levels – that can be a true super power in an increasingly complex world.

Forward Locomotion When Lacking Information

It’s a challenge making decisions when you don’t have all the facts.

The old adage, “Do the best you can with what you’ve got”, is a nice, but hardly comforting sentiment.

After all, not just any decision will do. We want to make decisions that advance us toward something – some idealized future state or goal.

Some things that help me:

First, gain as much clarity as you can about the end destination. Describe this better state intimately if you can.

Use that description to imagine your path forward from where you are.

Who must you become to achieve this vision?

What must you do?

And equally important – who must you avoid becoming? What must you not do?

The answers to those questions determine your guardrails.

On one hand, you’ve defined your ideal and components of it.

On the other, you’ve defined a set of activities and behaviors which will either increase the difficulty of or altogether disqualify you from reaching your goal. Which is often easier than listing out the activities and behaviors that will help you.

In between those two states are behaviors and activities that could help you advance – or not – but won’t hurt your progress.

Sure, that might be useful at the abstract planning level. But what about decisions in isolation?

Here’s another tip that works for me:

When considering a decision, don’t ask “Will” this help me? Rather, ask “Could” this help me?

Language matters. “Will” offers determinate outcomes. It closes off your mind from possibilities. While asking “could” activates your creative faculties.

The truth of the matter is that you’ll almost never be able to predict definitively how one choice might play out over time. (Within reason, of course, you can safely assume how eating a bottle of rat poison might impact your fate.)

Occasionally, you’ll be forced to choose among two options. Both may seem positive. But you may be uncertain which one will help you more.

Here’s what I recommend:

Don’t lose too much sleep over the decision. Early in your life and career, say yes to everything that’s not a hell no. If one decision excites you more (or challenges you more), pick that.

As you gain more leverage, you can adapt this to say no to everything that’s not a hell yes.

Rather than fret over the relative value of two decisions, focus more on avoiding stuff you hate.

So long as you are moving in a direction away from what you hate – and away from behaviors that disqualify you from your “end prize” – then you can safely advance with confidence.

Our Beliefs Shape Our Reality

When is the last time you changed your mind about something important?

What a challenging question, right?

I think so.

I wrestle with this question frequently.

First, because I reckon if my beliefs aren’t evolving over time, then I’m probably not learning enough. Which means I’m destined to remain in my ignorance.

Second, because it’s useful to encounter new information that challenges our present beliefs. Even if new information doesn’t change our minds, it can shore up gaps in our thinking – and that’s worth its weight it gold.

In other words, our beliefs shouldn’t go left unchecked for too long. Sometimes it’s not new information we need, though.

Often, we need a literal crucible to test our beliefs – or shatter them altogether.

Feedback Loops for Your Beliefs

When you believe something to be true, and allow that belief to govern your behavior, if you are attentive, you’ll collect market feedback about your beliefs as they’re acted out.

That feedback does not always come in perfectly translated form, though. Occasionally it can take shape in dastardly consequences – or even delightful surprises.

But this market feedback component is useful, because it allows us to become more aware of reality.

Absent this feedback loop, our beliefs really don’t matter much. At least, to the extent that accurate beliefs enable us to better cope with reality.

The Foundation of Beliefs

The purpose of beliefs, in my opinion, rests on a fantasy that a “better state” exists. That state exists in the future, and access to that better state depends on my conduct.

If I conduct myself properly, eventually, I can access and enjoy this better state.

But if I do not conduct myself properly, then I will forfeit my eligibility to ever experience that better state.

Just because this better state only exists as fantasy in the present, does not make it untrue. It simply means that until I can access it, that it does not, in reality, exist for me (yet).

Hence, the importance of developing beliefs that serve as a roadmap to the better state.

Proper conduct moves me closer. Improper conduct moves me farther away.

My beliefs govern my conduct. My ever-changing proximity to the perceived better state signals the appropriateness of my conduct.

As I act out my beliefs, the resulting change in proximity to my desired better state alerts me to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of my beliefs – as a roadmap toward my idealized better state.

This feedback loop provides useful information.

First, about the appropriateness of my beliefs as a set of directions for achieving my desired aim. If the directions are incorrect, I’ll end up in a different destination than intended.

Second, with enough effort, I may discover errors about my idealized better state. Perhaps it’s not all that I once chalked it up to be. In this case, maybe I don’t need to alter my beliefs, but adapt the fantasy to something more appropriate.

Adapting Our Own Hierarchies

This ebb and flow between our beliefs and the reality we create as a result of acting them out is part of the beauty of the great human drama.

We rarely – if ever – have complete information. The best we can do is respond to the incentive structures we encounter.

Sure, we can create new fantasies. But behind every fantasy, there is some truth – if not, at the very least, the hope of some higher truth we can’t yet articulate or prove.

Sometimes our beliefs are directed toward undetectable aims to those around us. This does not validate negative market feedback, nor does it invalidate our beliefs.

Then again, sometimes our beliefs are not only ineffective, they’re downright inaccurate portrayals of reality (physically manifested or fantasized).

We don’t have perfect information. So the idea of holding permanent, never-changing beliefs has always seemed a bit like psychosis to me.

But what does seem like a more appropriate, useful line of thinking, is the idea our beliefs evolve over time –both expanding and contracting as we identify gaps and cull impurities in our understanding.

A Tale of Two Religions (In 560 characters or less)

Part 1

As they approached the sacred place the child gazed at his father, bewildered.

“But I don’t understand why.”

“We must never forsake tradition,” came the father’s reproach, “for without it, we are nothing.”

Then, without another word, he flung himself over the cliff.

Part 2

“Are you sure this is the last of them?” The hunkered man paused as the leader spoke.

A wisp of smoke rose. He shuffled his hands, quicker now.

“We’ll erase the last memory of their way of life, my liege.”

A spear struck the ground. An onlooking battalion began to chant.

The end.

Dissatisfied Patience As the Key To Navigating Your Early Career

“I’m going to be the VP of Marketing.”

I could feel the tension in the room build before the words even finished leaving my lips. Sitting across the table from me was the guy who’d been hired to lead sales and marketing. He’d just asked a probing question about where I saw myself in the future.

I was 24 years old – and the low man on the totem pole of a company I’d been at less than 9 months. With one sentence, I’d thrown out the window all office social norms, niceties, and any reverence for ‘the way things are done.’

At the time I had no way of knowing how many challenges that single conversation would later create for me. I was young. Ambitious. Relentless. On occasion, reckless. But I was out to get mine. And no one could stand in my way.

Full of Piss and Vinegar

Like a young buck with a chip on his shoulder. That was me for the the better part of my early 20s. And admittedly, from time to time still is.

I walked with the air of a swagger I’d not yet earned. It was less of entitlement and more of conviction. An unshakeable belief in myself and my ability to win. Like a young fighter eager to touch gloves with the reigning champ.

But, like many a young fighter, I learned the hard way – it doesn’t matter how hard you punch in the first round of a 12-round match. A career, like a boxing match, is a game of endurance.

I made a lot of mistakes early in my career that can be attributed directly back to my youth. My eagerness. My ego. My impatience.

I wanted to be recognized for what I knew I could become. Before I’d proven it. And that’s a tough sales pitch no matter how good you are.

You Are Your Greatest Opponent

Ambition travels with a lot of baggage. Especially in the early days. Left unchecked, it breeds a weird kind of schizophrenic paranoia.

It breeds doubt. Anxiety. Pressure. And a laundry list of conspiracy theories:

Is somebody else doing better than me?
Should I be farther along than I am?
Could I be working harder than I am? Longer hours?
Do other people know how hard I’m working?
Is my contribution known and evident?
Am I getting credit for my efforts?
Should I be making more money?
Am I being taken advantage of?
Is my title impressive enough?
Do my coworkers respect me?
Am I a fraud?

Imposter syndrome is a function of pretending to be something you’ve not yet fully become. It’s natural in any transition period. But mostly it wastes precious energy. It redirects mental and physical resources toward perpetuating myths rather than converting those into value in reality.

I learned that the hard way.

A Better Coping Mechanism

Along the way I picked up several valuable lessons. Here’s one of them:

Opportunities come easier when you’re doing good work and paying close attention – than when you’re trying to convince people to create them for you.

At several points in time, my work became a cry for attention. I’d go above and beyond simply because I believed it to be my best way to get noticed. It was not about doing good for the sake of good work. It was a shell game.

I learned that working to get noticed is a passive approach to creating opportunities for yourself. It’s manipulative. Both to yourself and the person you hope to convince. It screams “I’ll do good work when I want something.” But there are only so many carrots you can dangle in front of someone before you run out of carrots.

Instead, I discovered a different approach. It’s offered me more satisfaction, more control, and more opportunities than I can count.

The secret lies in approaching life with a dissatisfied patience.

Ever since I discovered this mindset, I’ve been happier. More fulfilled. More content. More deliberate. And not surprisingly, more effective at creating opportunities.

How To Practice Dissatisfied Patience

Instead of worrying about opportunities outside my control, I try to focus on the present circumstances.

What opportunities do I have to improve things I already have domain over?
Is there a way to improve a process to free up more time?
Are there any ongoing problems I have the ability to solve – for myself or for others?
What activities do not require anyone else’s permission?
How could I take [X project] to the next level?

In other words, I try to shift the focus from future uncertainty to a local present. Instead of worrying about what I think I could become, I focus on what I can do to do my very best here and now.

When I stopped waving my hand around like a madman hoping to get called on, and instead just focused on doing good work, I discovered I got called on a lot more often.

This did not mean losing the fire in my belly to do more, to be more, or to achieve more. Instead it meant channeling it – so that if and when an opportunity does present itself, I’d not only be ready, but I’d be the obvious choice.

How To Increase the Likelihood of Your Desired Outcome

There’s no such thing as a sure deal. But you can almost always increase the likelihood of your desired outcome.

Consider a simple example for starters: Your monthly bills amount to $1,000. You’d like to cover these costs because you enjoy the comforts of having a roof over your head and food on your table. You recognize an income would enable you achieve your desired outcome.

So you acquire a full-time job that pays $15 per hour ($600/week or $2,500/month). The job does not guarantee your outcome. You still must show up and successfully administer those responsibilities the job requires. Both earning the job opportunity and doing the job both increase the likelihood of achieving your desired outcome.

Begin with the End in Mind

The surest way to achieve what you want in life is to start by defining it. Unless or until you have a sure aim, you waste energy by moving without definite direction.

Start by identifying the outcome you desire. Then work backwards.

In the example above, identifying a desired outcome is easy. You have bills which will be due each month. And you know the exact amount you need to succeed: $1,000 per month.

By defining your specific desired outcome, you’ve set the boundaries.

Define the Range of Probable Inputs

Beginning with your desired outcome sets the parameters you must work within to achieve success. Coming upon $1,000 before your bills are due this month becomes your “floor.” Any set of activities which leads to at least $1,000 per month will satisfy your desired outcome. Any set of activities which leads to less than $1,000 is out of the question.

Setting the floor allows you to eliminate “null” inputs – activities which will not satisfy your desired outcome. For instance, a null outcome would be working only one part-time job that pays $8/hour. The activity will advance you toward your goal but by itself will not satisfy your goal. So you can eliminate it as a possibility.

Setting the floor also enables you to draw a boundary around “negative” inputs – activities which will reduce the likelihood of your desired outcome. For example, increasing your monthly expenses by $1,000 is a negative input. You can eliminate activities that work against your goal.

Reduce Uncontrollable Variables

Within the scope of activities that lead to $1,000 per month, you have a lot of options. Some jobs may even offer the possibility of far more.

But what you’re after is certainty. What set of activities is most likely to achieve your desired outcome. In considering all the different possibilities, you also want to identify those which offer the fewest unknown or uncontrollable variables.

For instance, you may discover a job opportunity which promises $25 per hour of pay. On the surface this seems like a great input to consider. But if after a closer look you learn the opportunity offers wildly unpredictable hours and no guaranteed minimum – you cannot be certain this activity will increase the likelihood of your success.

You’re not just looking for possible success. You want inputs which offer you a highly probable, repeatable outcome. So you can eliminate any set of activities that do not guarantee the opportunity of at least $1,000 per month.

Test, Observe, and Adjust

As the saying goes, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” There will almost always be more than one path in front of you which offers high probability of achieving your desired outcome.

Keep this in mind as you work toward your desired outcome. If you come across a set of activities that allows you to achieve your desired outcome more efficiently, or offers you more satisfaction in the process, take it.

The more you practice working backwards from your goal, the more effective you will become at filtering activities that increase the likelihood of your success from those which do not.

At any given point in time, you’ll likely have more than one desired outcome in mind – each with varying priority. When this happens, you can evaluate each desired outcome and activity sets in isolation – or, you could redefine the parameters: only consider activities which satisfy all your desired outcomes.

Just remember, it all starts with defining the outcome (or outcomes) you want. Then work backwards.

Category: Philosophy