In business, in life, in weight loss, it’s often very hard to draw a straight line between the goal you want and the actions you take every day.
That’s how people end up exercising daily and still never getting the body they want.
That’s how you can work hard every single day and still not get the career you want.
That’s how you can learn constantly and still not create better products, services, or outcomes for your clients.
The problem isn’t effort.
It’s that the relationship between leading actions and lagging outcomes is rarely obvious in complex systems.
It’s not always clear which daily behaviors actually move the needle.
But with enough observation and reflection, you can almost always identify actions that may not directly cause the result, yet quietly pull you closer to it.
A good night’s sleep isn’t some cutting-edge nutrition hack.
And yet, the more consistently I sleep well, the better I strategize about my health, and the easier it becomes to stay exactly where I want to be fitness-wise.
Regular reflection doesn’t directly bring in more sales.
And yet, the more consistently I do it, the more sales tend to increase anyway.
Asking “why?” every time I decide to learn something doesn’t look like a super-learner technique.
And yet, it keeps improving the quality of my work, and the feedback I get on what I deliver.
This is what I kept thinking about while listening to a new podcast episode with Tim Herbig on Change Wired podcast.
We talk about product strategy, metrics, discovery, and how to avoid progress theater in favor of moving the right needle forward.
And it reminded me of something important:
Even AI won’t help you make more meaningful progress unless you’re willing to slow down and reflect on a few hard questions:
What is ultimately important to you?
(Your winning aspiration.)
What will you do, and NOT do, to get there?
(Your strategic choices.)
How will you know you’re getting closer?
(A mix of leading actions and lagging outcomes.)
And when things don’t work, what’s your strategy for discovering what might?
One line from our conversation resonate with me especially a lot:
“AI will help you get to the hard part faster.”
Yes.
But if you’re not ready to deal with the hard parts, clarity, trade-offs, reflection and taking strategic risks, it won’t deliver anything fundamentally different. Just faster noise.
Over to you, dear reader, enjoy the podcast - Real Progress VS Busy Work with Tim Herbig: how to connect strategy, the right metrics and discovery to build what you want - Impactful Products, Beach Body or Meaningful Life.
And note for the day: which quiet, non-obvious actions are actually moving you closer, even if the results haven’t shown up yet?
