One Apple A Day #231
Effort and outcome are connected, but they are not the same.
If we want the latter, we must put in the first one.
Our effort contributes to the achievement of the outcome, but it’s not the only factor.
The outcome is the product of our effort as much as the contribution of external factors. To be honest, I believe that chance (luck or however you want to call it) plays a higher role than we think in defining the outcome.
We often link “success” with the outcome. The problem is that you can control your effort, but you can’t control the outcome.
Yes, often one leads to the other, and because we all want to feel good, it’s easy to overestimate the role of our effort (or skills or talent) and convince ourselves that we are the only “masters” of our destinies.
But what happens when we don’t achieve the outcome we wanted?
We start blaming. Someone blame others, or the world, or god, or some big corporations and so on. Others blame themselves.
Both are downward spirals holding back their growth.
If we learn to connect success with our effort and become unattached with the outcome, then every result, good or bad, will be a success.
Sometimes will get the outcome we wanted, other times we will learn something useful. In both cases, we will achieve a better version of ourselves.