An effective way to determine what you really want

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A principle that will turn a vague goal into a real opportunity.

When your goal is rather vague (for example, you want to make a living by helping people become healthier), it is very difficult for you to stay on track to achieve it. Sometimes you just want to shake an indecisive person and shout: “Well, do at least something! Anything is better than doing nothing! But this is unlikely to somehow help the case.

The same problem can be approached in a different way. Steve Jobs referred to this principle:

You cannot connect the points of your destiny if you look forward; they can only be connected retrospectively. So you have to believe that these points will somehow connect in the future. You have to believe in something: in your courage, destiny, karma - whatever. This principle has never let me down and changed my whole life.

Let's say you have some vague goal. Ask yourself what resources you currently have. Then think about what you can achieve using these resources. Then you don't have to figure out what you want. Instead, you will be able to appreciate the opportunities that will open up for you in the future with current resources.

"What do I want?" or "What do I have?"

Causation

The principle by which most people solve the problem “I don't know what I want” is what Saras Saraswati, a professor at the University of Virginia, calls causation. According to this approach, you first choose some approximate goal, then refine it, and then look for resources with which you can achieve it.

Let's say your goal is to build a business that helps make people healthier. This means that the next step is to research the market and, based on its analysis, choose the product that you will produce.

One of your friends works in the health food industry. He tells you that veganism is becoming more and more popular. You can see that this is a fast growing but not yet full market. In addition, you know that nowadays people do not have a single free minute and they often have a snack on the go. You decide to take advantage of both trends and build a vegan snack business. You now have a well-defined goal.

Now is the time to find resources for this business. You design the packaging for vegan snacks, order the first batch and start selling them.

You decide to use Google AdWords to promote your product. You discover that you are good enough in this matter, because you have developed analytical thinking. Using the pay-per-click model, you achieve profitable sales figures, but in the end, things don't go as you expected. It stops working for the development of your company.

So you start looking for other ways to promote your snacks, such as through content marketing or special trade shows, but they don't help you much. You continue to focus on how to grow your vegan snack business.

Effects

After analyzing the facts from the lives of more than 30 successful entrepreneurs, Dr. Saraswati came to the conclusion that it is much more profitable to determine the available means before a clear statement of the goal. This model of rational goal setting is called effectuation.

If, after formulating an approximate goal, you conduct an analysis of resources, then later you will not have to search for them or generate them. It will be enough for you to check which of them are available to you at the moment. Based on the resources available, you can more intelligently articulate a specific goal.

Let's consider this mechanism using the same example. Instead of doing market research, you evaluate the resources available to you.

1. Who you are? What are your strengths, traits, abilities and talents? For example, you have an analytical mind.
2. Who do you know? What connections do you have in a professional and non-professional environment? For example, you have a friend who has a food processing business similar to the one you want to build.
3. What do you know? What skills, professional knowledge, experience and interests do you have? For example, you've read several articles on how to promote products through Google AdWords Pay Per Click (PPC), and you decided that this knowledge will be useful to you.

You convince a friend to try out your internet marketing knowledge and run a PPC campaign for an existing and well-selling product. You understand that you are good enough in this business and you are interested in it.

You learn that there is a food industry meeting next week and decide to attend. You do this in order to learn more about the production of snacks, that is, about what you are going to do.

At this meeting, you come across a manufacturer of special dietary croutons. In a conversation with him, you mention that you figured out how to profitably promote your product through PPC, ran a successful campaign for your friend, and in the future you are going to use the same promotion method for your product.

A crouton maker asks you to run such a campaign for his business. You agree on the basis that this can be a good experience. And you succeed again.

At this stage, you again evaluate the resources you have.

1. Who you are? You still have good analytical skills.
2. Who do you know? You now have two clients in the industry you are interested in.
3. What do you know? You understand that it is not difficult to provide pay-per-click marketing services because you can easily quantify the results. If the customer realizes that after he pays you a certain amount of money, you provide him with income twice this amount, then he will clearly be disposed to long-term cooperation with you.

Because you are evaluating your resources before specifying a goal, you realize that you can achieve your original goal of making a living by helping people be healthier - in a completely unexpected way. It would take a lot of money and time to start selling vegan snacks. Instead, you decide to start consulting clients on PPC marketing and working primarily with health food brands.

After a year of consulting, you meet a guy who makes healthy nutritional supplements for vegans using the high quality equipment he is willing to show you.

The next day, you read an article on How To Promote Your Products Profitably Through Amazon, And You Decide That Now Is The Best Time To Do It. On the vegan forum, you also learn about a very healthy herbal mixture that people make at home on their own.

You are evaluating your resources again.

1. Who you are? You have gained experience in PPC marketing and experience with brands.
2. Who do you know? You now have a connection with someone who knows where to get high quality vegan nutritional supplement equipment.
3. What do you know? You know that it is very profitable at the moment to promote your products on Amazon and that there are people who make herbal mixtures at home, so good equipment will definitely come in handy.

This combination of resources gives you a strategic advantage over nearly all competitors. You may already have a specific goal in mind - making nutritional supplements for vegans.

And this is not the end …

Effectiveness benefits are already visible in the short term. And in the long run, it leads to amazing results.

After six months running a nutritional supplement company, you notice that Amazon's pay-per-click service is growing at a fast pace. You decide to expand your PPC marketing consulting in this direction and quickly master it.

And then you radically change your goal. You want to take up writing. Throughout your time running various businesses, you've spent countless hours reading productivity books and developing your own productivity-enhancing techniques. Therefore, you are writing a book on how to become more productive.

To promote the book, you use your marketing experience and the money your business supplies you with. It has great success and becomes a bestseller. You are invited to speak about your book. At one of your speeches, a representative of an investment fund notices you and invites you to consult managers on productivity issues.

You advise employees of various investment companies. In the process, you will learn a lot about investing and valuing various businesses. You never took this into account, but now you understand that a business can be bought and sold. In the end, you decide to sell your firms.

In the process of selling, you talk to private equity investors. Initially, you only interact on business issues, but then these people become your friends.

This is how you learn about investment opportunities that most other people do not have. Using this knowledge and the proceeds from the sale of your firms, you begin to invest in start-up companies.

Five years ago, you were about to start selling snacks. Then you could not even imagine that you would be paid for public speaking. And even more so - you can become an investor. It would be simply impossible to predict such a development of events.

conclusions

Of course, if you are dreaming about something, you cannot turn off the intended path. But the modern world is very changeable. To stay afloat, you need to constantly rebuild your intermediate plans, over and over again evaluate the available funds. Therefore, the effect model may be more useful to you.

So, according to this model, first you define an approximate, rather vague goal, then analyze the resources you have, answering certain questions ("Who am I?", "Who do I know?", "What do I know?"), Then clarify the goal, specify it or make the necessary changes to it. After that, you need to prioritize and give yourself time to try your chosen strategy. After about three months, reevaluate the resources available and adjust your course of action.

At the end of the cycle, reconsider your original goal. Perhaps you will stay true to your plans. Or maybe you will realize that you need something completely different and go the other way.