Chasing Outcomes When We Need to Focus on the Process

Opening story:

I recently had a conversation with a high-level entrepreneur about feeling lost.

From the outside looking in, he appeared to have everything. He looked like someone who could accomplish anything. The issue was that on the inside, he felt lost and as if everything was on the verge of collapsing. I asked him what he had been spending most of his time focusing on, even though I already had a pretty good idea of the answer.

He told me he’d been paying attention to what everyone around him, especially those at his level or above, had in their lives. A lot of it centered around material things: the size of their businesses, the size of their homes, the awards they were receiving, and the success they seemed to have.

So we dug a little deeper. “What is the actual fear?” Is it that you’re not good enough? That you’re going to fail? That you can’t keep up?

As we continued talking, the answer became clear. The fear wasn’t really about the businesses, the houses, or the awards. It was the fear of failing to become the person he had always hoped to be and letting the people he cared about down.

This is a conversation I have with high performers quite often. From the outside, they look like they have everything together. On the inside, many are carrying an incredible amount of pressure.

The difficult part is that this often prevents them from getting the support they need because they don’t want to appear weak or shatter the image everyone else sees.

The Performance Insight:

One of the biggest patterns I’ve noticed over the years is how often people become consumed by outcomes.

It makes sense. We all want the outcome. The million-dollar business. The promotion. The championship. The dream house. The financial freedom. There’s nothing wrong with having ambitious goals. The problem begins when those goals become the only thing we’re paying attention to.

Ironically, focusing too much on the outcome is often one of the fastest ways to fall off the path toward achieving it. You see the opposite in championship organizations, elite teams, world-class athletes, and high-performing businesses. Listen to how they talk. They rarely obsess over the scoreboard. Instead, they talk about the process. The fundamentals. The routines. The daily habits. The little things that most people overlook. It’s not a coincidence. When you consistently master the basics, the outcomes tend to take care of themselves. When we become obsessed with where we’re trying to go, we often lose sight of what we need to do today to get there.

One analogy I often think about is climbing a mountain. If you spend the entire climb staring at the summit, you’re much more likely to miss a step. Sometimes the best thing you can do is keep your head down and focus on taking the next good step. When you finally reach the top, you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the view. So write your goals down. Know where you’re going. Then set them aside. Focus your energy on today’s process. Stay flexible. Adjust when life inevitably throws obstacles in your path. Keep moving.

More often than not, the outcomes have a funny way of showing up when you’ve been consistently focused on the process.

The Science Behind It

Research in psychology has consistently shown that focusing on what we can control leads to better performance, lower stress, and greater long-term success than fixating on outcomes we can’t fully control.

One of the reasons is that outcomes are influenced by many variables outside of our control, other people’s decisions, timing, luck, market conditions, injuries, or unexpected setbacks. When our attention becomes consumed by those outcomes, our brain naturally begins to interpret uncertainty as a threat. This can increase stress, narrow our attention, and make it more difficult to think clearly and perform at our best.

In contrast, directing our attention toward the process, the daily behaviors, routines, and skills within our control, helps create a greater sense of agency. Research on goal pursuit and performance consistently finds that people who focus on controllable actions are more likely to stay motivated, persist through setbacks, and ultimately achieve their long-term goals.

This idea also aligns with findings from sports psychology and performance science. Elite performers often rely on process goals rather than solely on outcome goals. Instead of focusing exclusively on winning the championship, earning the promotion, or growing the business, they focus on executing the behaviors that make those outcomes more likely.

The outcome provides direction.

The process is what gets you there.

The more consistently you invest in the process, the more likely the outcomes become, not because success is guaranteed, but because you’re repeatedly doing the things that give you the greatest chance of achieving it.

This Week’s Challenge

This week, take your eyes off the finish line. Instead of measuring success by how close you are to your goal, measure it by whether you completed the next step. Keep it simple. Focus on the basics. Show up. Do the work that’s directly in front of you.

It sounds counterintuitive, but the more attention you give to the process, the more likely you are to achieve the outcome. If you’re not sure what your process should be, start with your goal and work backwards. Identify the steps it will take to get there. Then put the goal aside.

For the rest of the week, commit to winning the day by focusing on those steps and trusting the process.

The Premier Mindset Podcast:

3 Key Takeaways from this weeks Podcast | Episode 71: How Social Media Is Quietly Damaging Competitive Athletes (New episodes drop every Sunday)

1. Your confidence isn’t disappearing overnight, it’s being borrowed one comparison at a time.​
Most athletes don’t lose confidence because they suddenly get worse. They lose it through hundreds of small comparisons that slowly reshape how they see themselves. One highlight reel or recruiting announcement may seem harmless, but over time those moments train your brain to measure yourself against everyone else instead of measuring your own growth.

2. Social media isn’t just competing for your time, it’s competing for your attention, confidence, and identity.​
The biggest danger isn’t scrolling too much. It’s allowing the algorithm to decide what deserves your focus. Elite performers build an internal scoreboard based on discipline, preparation, and daily improvement, not likes, followers, or someone else’s highlight reel. This episode explains why protecting your attention has become one of the biggest competitive advantages in modern sports.

3. You’ll leave with practical tools to take back control.​
This isn’t a “delete social media” episode. You’ll learn actionable strategies like the Digital Performance Audit, Comparison Interrupt, Identity Anchor, and Performance First Rule, simple mental skills you can use immediately to build confidence, stay focused, and make social media work for your performance instead of against it.

Bottom line: If you want to perform at your highest level, training your body isn’t enough anymore. In today’s world, protecting your attention may be one of the most important performance skills you’ll ever develop.

Whats coming up:

🎙Podcast Episode 72 (Releases Sunday morning) | Lessons in High Performance with Andrew Trimble

This week’s episode features a conversation with Andrew Trimble, a Gas Control Technician at PG&E and dedicated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner.

We explore how the lessons learned through years of training, competition, and continuous improvement extend far beyond the mat. From embracing discomfort and developing resilience to staying disciplined when progress feels slow, Andrew shares practical insights that apply to anyone striving for excellence.

Whether you’re leading a team, building a business, competing in sports, or simply trying to become a better version of yourself, this conversation is a reminder that high performance isn’t limited to your career, it’s built through the way you approach challenges in every area of life.

I hope you’ll tune in this Sunday.

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for taking the time to invest in yourself this week.

My hope is that these newsletters give you practical tools, new perspectives, and small shifts that make a meaningful difference over time. If you found this helpful, I’d truly appreciate you sharing it with someone who could benefit from it as well.

Reply to this email, I read them all. I would love to know, when have you gotten stuck pursuing outcomes over process in your life?

Until next week,

Premier Minds. Premier Results.

— Trent Mahler, LCSW
Founder, Premier Performance LLC

www.PremierPerformanceReno.com