I’m a very outcomes-focused person. That not only means that I care about the results of my actions, but it means I tend to be pretty good at recognizing what will actually affect those outcomes – as opposed to what couldn’t possibly.
Big outcomes are made of small details, but very often a wide range of variance within those details will produce exactly the same result. Let’s say I could take one of five different routes to an event, and as a result I could arrive at said event at five different times, all within the same 15-minute window. Does it matter which route I take?
Not even a little. I mean sure, if I get in a car accident along one route I could end up dwelling on whether I should have taken another, but given that I couldn’t have known that to begin with, there’s no reason to stress about this decision. There might be a sixth route that crosses three state lines and takes the long way around Lake Michigan, and I probably shouldn’t take that one – but I probably wasn’t going to.
The point is that some details are certainly important. But very rarely are they worth any stress. My favorite painting is Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Assuming you find it as beautiful and moving as I do – can you point to one solitary brushstroke that, if altered by fifteen degrees in angle or by a slight shade in color, would ruin the experience of gazing upon it?
Not even a little.
Obsess over the technique. Obsess over getting good at the things you do, to the point where the details take care of themselves. And then you can live in the outcomes, not in the process.
The Opportunity Machine 