The Essence of the Process Mindset
You’ve probably been told many times that it’s better to have a process mindset than to have an outcome mindset. But what does this mean? Does it mean that you shouldn’t think about winning, fame, money, or success? Of course not.
While it’s true that winning, fame, money and success are outcomes, having a process mindset doesn’t mean you’re wrong to think about those things or use them for motivation. That would be absurd.
It’s perfectly natural in our culture to think about these outcomes. Instead, the essence of the process mindset is not to stop yourself from thinking about outcomes, it’s to deemphasize the importance of outcomes you don’t control.
In other words, the essence of the process mindset is to focus on what’s controllable and deemphasize what’s not controllable. Moreover, no matter how bad you want to win or how bad you want to be rich and successful, you can’t get there until a process takes you there. Therefore, the main thing impacting the outcome is the effort you put into the process.
As author Stephen Covey is so famous for saying
Keep the main thing the main thing.
Above all, this is why the process mindset is so important. It’s the only mindset orientation that forces you to keep the main thing the main thing, and that’s making the most out of what you control (i.e., the process).