Focus on Getting Better, rather than Being Good

Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability.

In the previous article I told you successful people use realistic optimism instead of blind faith and brash confidence. When we use realistic optimism, we will realize that we aren’t infallible, and we are bound to make mistakes. We will also realize that we lack one or more critical skills required to complete a task. When faced with such realizations, how do successful people maintain their motivation and succeed at their tasks? This article addresses the secret that successful people use in such situations instead of giving up.

The secret lies in the goals that successful people set when they approach a task. People approach any task with one of two types of goals. One type is be-good goals where you approach a task with complete confidence in your skills and the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and already know what you are doing. The other is get-better goals, that focus on developing ability and learning new skills.

The problem with be-good goals is that when you face something unfamiliar or difficult, you start feeling that you don’t know what you are doing and that you lack the ability to complete the task. You worry about how you will look and what others will say. This leads to anxiety. And anxiety is a huge deterrent to performance that will stop you in your tracks and lead to failure.

On the other hand, a get-better goal is an anxiety buster. With these goals, you don’t give up when you make mistakes or when a situation arises that challenges your knowledge and skill levels. Instead, you accept that you are bound to make mistakes and that you won’t know everything. This kills anxiety and leads you to adopt strategies that help you acquire the skills required to resolve the situation and achieve success.

With get-better goals you approach tasks humbly and look upon each task as a learning opportunity. The learning mindset not only helps you face up to difficulties, it makes you interested in the difficult task. This has a huge benefit because finding what you do interesting and believing it has inherent value, is one of the best ways to stay motivated despite difficulty, setbacks and unexpected roadblocks. Recent research has shown that interest in a task not only helps overcome despite fatigue, it replenishes your energy and rejuvenates you.

I hope you agree that setting get-better goals has many benefits and it is something that we should adopt. It separates the winner from the also-ran. So, to put this into practice and focus on getting better, try the following:

1. When a project is difficult and unfamiliar, remember that you will need time to get a handle on the task. Be patient and understand that you will make some mistakes. Give yourself the permission to make mistakes. This will reduce anxiety and improve your chances of succeeding.
2. You won’t know everything there is to know and you don’t need to know everything. When you find that you don’t know something approach the experts and learn from them. Acknowledging your ignorance and asking for help will make people think more of you for it and not less.
3. Don’t compare yourself and your current performance to others; compare it to your own past performance. Are you improving? That’s the question that matters. If the answer is no, see point 2 above.

Halvorson, Heidi Grant. Nine Things Successful People Do Differently (Kindle Locations 209-210). Harvard Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.