Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

While it may sound cliché when you hear that the key to success is to enjoy the process, it simply a fact. When you don’t enjoy the process, little challenges feel like big challenges and 20 minutes of hard work feels like 20 hours. This is a recipe for failure. On the other hand, when you do enjoy the process it’s enjoyable to overcome challenges and hard work breeds satisfaction. This is a recipe for success.

The problem is that even though this is both cliché and obvious, many people still face the conundrum of wanting things because of the outcome while not enjoying the process they must go through to get those things. To solve this conundrum there only two options.

1. Change the outcome you want to something that enables a process that is enjoyable.
2. Change your mindset about what makes a process enjoyable.

Assuming that #1 is counterproductive to how you define success in your life, I will focus on #2.

How to Change your Mindset About What Makes a Process Enjoyable

To change your mindset about anything, you first must concede that this is not an overnight process. Therefore, the first step to enjoying the process is to give yourself some grace and patience that time is on your side, and you don’t have to rush. If the process is not enjoyable, it’s likely that the outcome you want is difficult to achieve.

Pursuing a difficult goal is (dare I say it) difficult. By my calculations, 99% of people will fail to achieve a difficult goal in their lifetime. To be clear, a difficult goal by my definition is a long-term goal that requires a minimum of 4 years effort. This is a long time, and as a result most people fail to achieve these types of goals.

When someone starts on the journey to pursue a difficult goal, there is normally an understanding that the journey is hard. Most people accept that success won’t happen overnight. However, even in knowing this, most people still don’t adopt the mindset they need for success.

So instead of enjoying the process, they pursue their difficult goal with the mindset of trying to shortcut the process. This means they push themselves to burnout or even worse, they attempt to cheat the process. Either way is a recipe for failure.

The fact of the matter is the best way to pursue a difficult goal is by approaching the process with a mindset that gives you the greatest chance for success. You can adopt this mindset by doing the following two things.

1) Make the Process the Goal, and the Goal the Compass

When the process is the goal, then achieving your goal is 100% within your control. Moreover, you can regularly measure progress by your ability to stay on track following the process. Research supports that progress amplifies intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, when you have intrinsic motivation fueled by your progress, by definition you will be enjoying the process.

2) Use a Goal Progression to Enjoy the Process

A goal progression is the process of moving gradually towards a more advanced state.  Defining a goal progression is no different than defining a progression for a physical activity.   When you define the progression for a physical activity, you must first break down the athletic skills and muscle groups that need development.  Once you identify that, you then develop a daily routine around developing those skills and / or muscle groups. This routine must include tracking the consistency streaks, measuring the progression, and making adjustments.

Then, every time you graduate to the next step in the progression, it serves as the compass for verifying you’re moving in the direction of progress. Moreover, these progression steps become the roses you can see, as well as take time to stop and smell by celebrating on the way to your destination. This is ultimately what leads to the mindset you need to enjoy the process.