“If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail” vs. “The Path Will Illuminate as You Walk It”

Everyone seems to have advice these days—sometimes with good intentions, sometimes just to prove a point. Either way, for every piece of advice, there’s often an opposing perspective, depending on the context.

Take the comparison above: one emphasizes planning ahead, while the other encourages taking risks and adjusting as you go. If you fail to plan, you might be out of luck. But at the same time, most of life is unpredictable. You have to take risks, learn as you go, and adapt. Both perspectives are valid, yet they contradict each other.

The truth? You need both. You have to plan ahead and take risks. You have to live like there’s no tomorrow while also preparing as if you’ll live forever.

Process Goals vs. Outcome Goals

This same balance applies to goal setting. There are two ways to frame goals: outcome goals and process goals.

Outcome-oriented goals focus on the end result. “I want to earn a degree.” “I want to make a million dollars.” “I want to lose 20 pounds.” The focus is purely on reaching the destination, no matter the path.

Process-oriented goals focus on the steps required to get there. Spoiler alert: this post is all about why process-oriented goals are the better approach.

We tend to be more outcome-focused. Everyone has heard of SMART goals—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. These types of goals outline what you want and when you want it. The typical approach? Set the goal, reverse-engineer the steps, then follow the plan.

But when it comes to weight loss or body composition goals, an outcome-focused approach can be misleading. It makes it seem like once you reach your goal, the work is over. This is why fad diets and weight-loss challenges often fail. People align all their actions around reaching a specific number on the scale, believing that once they get there, they can suddenly switch to a completely different set of habits to maintain it.

Why Process Goals Matter

The problem? Habits and skills take time, consistent practice, and continuous refinement. Expecting to reach a goal and instantly adopt a whole new lifestyle isn’t realistic. It’s not how people truly grow and change.

One of the few examples of a purely outcome-focused system is school. You work hard to graduate, and once you have your degree, “no one can take it away from you.” Whether or not you retain the knowledge long-term doesn’t really matter—you’ve reached the outcome.

But in most areas of life, things don’t work like that. The only real outcome in life is death—everything else is an ongoing process. When you reach a goal, you have to maintain the habits that got you there. And as you grow, there will always be a next step that requires refining your skills even further.

Your results are only as sustainable as your behaviors. When the behaviors stop, so do the results. That’s why sustainability and consistency are so important. Instead of just rewarding results, we need to reward the behaviors that lead to them. There are countless ways to reach a goal weight, but only one way to get there and stay there: by building lasting habits.

Of course, we also have to accept the natural pace of progress and understand where we do and don’t have control (locus of control)—but those are topics for another post.