Process, not prizes

Sporting successs by individuals is a steady, never ending source of motivational memes and quotes.

For example, Virat Kohli, India's cricket captain said that he regularly scores centuries because he does not, in fact, care about scoring centuries. He focuses on enjoying the match and doing the best he can. Centuries, 30+ in less than 200 matches(!), are a happy byproduct.

What does that mean for me and you?

Segue

Sport is a constrained facsimile of life. The number of variables and actors in sport is restricted to manageable levels. At the highest level, even with far fewer variables, sport can become suffocating but it's a far cry from say running a publicly traded company where the lives of hundreds of families depends on you.

So, a sporting icon's philosophizing is necessarily limited and applicable inside their smaller domains.

Back

When a sportsperson says to focus on the process and not the results, what do they mean?

They simply mean that they have played their sport so much that they are no longer self-aware when they are playing. They aren't conscious of and cognizantly reacting to each moment in the game.

If you have ever truly lost your self control and argued with someone in anger, you'll know what it means. You lose yourself inside that anger. You're just responding to every tic, every jab, of the other person. In a way, you are in the zone except anger is a destructive emotion and no one accepts that being angry is being in the zone.

Now imagine losing all self awareness when playing a sport. You're just responding, reacting, acting, executing, without simultaneously watching yourself as the game plays out.

This is necessary because at the highest level, you just can't afford the luxury of thinking before swinging your bat or ducking a hook. Instinct has to take over.

When Virat Kohli talks about process, he is talking about the time before he steps on the field to play the game that guides his instinct.

For us, the lesson is obvious. Reduce the number of variables in any business confrontation and then let instinct take over.