Winning the short game

I’ve never been much chop at goals. I get the idea, in theory. A specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely target, set into the future, for you to conquer. Sounds sensible.

So there’s this flag in the distance that awakens the giant within you. You discover depths of inspiration and courage and focus you never knew you had. Day by day you draw closer to the prize. You overcome the murky pits, the deathly valleys and the nagging self-doubt. You’re unstoppable. You’re a titan. You’re a conqueror. You’ve done it. It’s yours. Well, it will be. All you’ve got to do is write it down on a crisp sheet of A4. In the correct format.

It all makes so much sense. And I’m a pretty rational person. This should be right up my alley. But for some reason it just never works out for me.

I do have a general resistance to authority, which doesn’t help. Not that I’m a rebel, but I really can’t stand being told what to do and how to do it. Makes me feel physically ill. I don’t know where I get that from, but it’s a thing. I just feel like I should resist. So when I hear that there’s this strict format for writing a goal, something in me just blocks it.

Maybe it’s because I’m more of a chip-away-at-it type creator, rather than a bolt-of-lightning type creator. I’m thinking of Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of the two types of innovators: conceptual innovators and experimental innovators. Neither is better than the other, just two types. Or a spectrum from one to the other.

The conceptual innovator is the stroke of genius type. They hit a remarkable peak early in their career. Out of nowhere, they take the world by storm with astounding work. They maintain this peak throughout their career. Their work is characterised by sudden flashes of inspiration. They see the idea, then work quickly to bring it to life. The genius is in that moment of inspiration. Gladwell says Picasso was like this. He was awesome straight out of the gate and stayed that way for ages. He had these new ideas and bam, there’s the work. Awesome. The one limit for these guys, is apparently, that early peak is their actual peak. They may very well maintain that level for a long time, but they’re probably not going to any new heights. And also, with their work, they kind of think it, make it, and it’s done. If they’re happy, then good. But if it’s not quite right, there’s no massaging into perfection, it’s just not working.

The other type, the experimental innovator, tends to build to success. Apparently Alfred Hitchcock was like this. Their early career could be quite mundane, possibly with no particular evidence of talent. But they build. They work and they work and they keep getting better, until late in their career, it all comes together and there is it, it’s genius. With hindsight, you can draw a line that connects all the work, tracing back to some obscure early experiment that didn’t even work, but somehow it all ties together to give birth to this one genius thing. And it’s the same with their individual works. There may not be a clear end point in mind, just a fuzzy notion, a bit of a feeling. They tap away, push it this way and that, until something starts to emerge and then bit by bit it all comes together.

I feel a bit more like the second kind. I never start with a clear end point in mind. I need to mess around for a bit until the idea starts to emerge. Then I follow the form and I know it when I see it.

It’s not a recipe for making hits, but it’s the only way I know how to work.

The thing is, for this approach to work, I need time. Time to tinker. Time to just work with the material and get it bouncing around my head until a few connections start happening. And then a few tangents emerge, and I follow whatever seems interesting, and I loop back and pick up another thread and I go around in circles until something starts getting clearer and then I hone in on that part and refine it and refine it until it becomes the thing. I think that’s how it works.

But there’s one other critical part that I think I’ve overlooked in the past: consistency. Sure, I need time. But time is nothing. If you don’t use the time, nothing happens. So there needs to be a consistent building up of the work.

Not like building a brick wall though. Like, hey this wall needs 250 bricks, so if you lay 50 bricks a day, you’ll be done in 5 days. That’s not it. In that case, the idea is the wall. It’s clear from the outset what you’re making, so the work is to deliver the vision. Do the work, put the parts in place and you’ll achieve what you set out to do. No, not like that.

Rather, for me, it might be, spend a few days laying bricks, see how that works. Then try some other materials, some timber and something else. And then in the end, you figure out that the best solution is to plant a few trees and make a hedge. It’s only in the making and the playing that you get to know what works, you see the limits, you think of alternatives and you end up with a whole different solution.

The key is to dedicate yourself to doing the work consistently, to make sure you will discover the outcome. This is probably the opposite of goal setting. At least, it’s why goal setting never works for me. Because when it comes to doing anything really important, I want to make sure I do it well. So I don’t want to decide up front what it’s going to be.

How could I possibly know where specifically to set my flag? How can I predetermine measurements for an unknown outcome? How do I know if it’s attainable or relevant if I can’t put my finger on it yet? And how will I know how long it’s all going to take?

Whenever I’ve attempted to do the goal thing, I’ve found the whole smart approach so arbitrary. I just don’t believe in it. It all seems made up. I have to make it up. I don’t know any of those details up front.

So this is why the short game is working for me. I’ve finally, maybe, figured out how to trick myself into getting things done. For me, I think it’s about creating a habit, not setting a goal.

I recently tried an experiment. I’ve wanted to get back into regular exercise for a while, but haven’t been able to do it. I should get back into cycling, or build up my running again, or just lift some weights. I need a goal. What’s my goal? Meh.

Then one day, I happened to notice I was having a pretty good week on my Apple Watch. I’ve had an Apple Watch for a couple of years and I’ve always been aware of the daily move, exercise and stand goals, of course, but I’ve never focused on them. Then I noticed, I’d just completed five perfect days in a row. I just needed two more to make a perfect week. That would be cool. So I made sure to complete my exercise time for the next two days and there I had it, a perfect week.

That was near the end of January. What if I kept going? I just kept it up, right through February. Boom, a perfect month! Every evening I’d look at my watch. Turns out, the exercise ring is the clincher. I’d always do enough exercise to hit the mark and the rest would take care of itself.

By focusing each day on hitting that mark, I won the day. After winning day after day, I won the month. And now, without really having a goal in mind, I’ve been steadily building my fitness, without even having a long term plan. I’m only focused on winning the short game, every day.

Same is happening with this blog. I don’t have a goal. Just a commitment to publish one post a day. It’s got to be decent—no point writing trash. But otherwise, it’s just about writing each day. The long run can take care of itself. For now, I’m focused on the short game and it seems to be working.

I realise it’s worked in the past too. I just didn’t realise it. I did a half marathon a couple of years ago. Ran a great time too. I’ve often wondered how I did that. But now it’s clear, it was all about the short game then too. I had a program, and I followed it. I wasn’t driven my some naff visualisation of myself crossing the finish line. No thanks. I just did the training, day by day. Program says hills, I did hills. Program says intervals, I did intervals. Long run, slow run, rest day, whatever, I only thought about the work for the day, then I was done. Of course there was some planning involved, but that all seemed to happen in the wake of my running habit. And that was easy, because I wasn’t climbing a mountain or chasing a flag, just doing the work. Every day.