Picking a Goal is a Goal

In the middle of a comprehensive webinar on proper consultant positioning I realized something.

I am not actually interested in building a winning practice. Doing so will create the life I never wanted.

This was unexpected, but looking back, the clues were there.

After saying goodbye to the corporate years and getting ready to bet on myself, I followed with the next logical step - building a consulting practice. It made sense. I had experience, companies had problems picking and harnessing technology that I solved before, the domain was well defined. A no-brainer choice.

I put long and serious effort in systems, marketing, niching, writing enticing lead generation posts. I did extensive networking and had multiple conversations about my services.

And then something odd started to happen.

Every time a potential lead fell through, I felt happy. Every time a phone rang, I felt stressed.

This was rather confusing so I did the next logical thing - redefined my niche and signed up for the webinar.

It took a talented presenter walking though the winning path to help me see clearly how it resembled the jobs I’ve left. Narrow positioning, meetings, talking rather than making. I didn’t want this to work out.

In retrospect the uneasy “gut feeling” made sense.

The risk of striking your own path instead of continuing the career is worth it for the freedom of choices. You decide what life you want to build and how to get there. Following a “makes-sense” path is the absolute worst combination of accepting full risk while recreating the job environment where the paths are defined for you.

Why did it take so long to see?

I blame the inertia of the brain - it’s been quite the challenge to switch from “job thinking” to “founder thinking.” With job you optimize for reaching the goals - promotion, raise, interesting project. Outside traditional employment you optimize the goal.

Selecting a right goal is a goal in itself.

Instead of defaulting to logical paths, I now imagine the what my typical day would look like when this goal is achieved.

I ask: if any path can be chosen, what does success means to me? Reaching certain revenue or ability to take a hike in the woods during unusually warm winter day? Managing a team or creating new things?

Compromises must be made.

The time spent working on the outcome I didn’t actually want was an affordable tuition.