Letting Go of Outcomes

Kim Reindl
Jun 23
9 min read

INTENSION: Possibility

TOUCHSTONE:

Know It Is Possible ·to receive whatever it is that you need. Each day, each encounter, and each situation offers an invitation into something new. Life is continuously unfurling. The seeds planted here can keep growing in the days ahead.

The Competitive Paradigm

I was raised in a household built on the paradigm of competition. The need for competition was never questioned. The expectation was that winning is good and that my job in life was to be a winner. Hence, I came to believe that much of life’s value was rooted in the outcomes.

It would be a gross oversimplification to say that this was all that was important to my family. It was not. Yet, this focus on outcomes infiltrated every aspect of my life. If I were participating in a sport (in my experience sports were played in the neighborhood for fun, nothing formal) the expectation was that you were playing to win. Neighborhood pickup games of football, softball, kickball, Horse, darts, billiards (which we called pool), chip and putt, as well as indoor games such as Monopoly, Rummy, Risk, or Chinese Checkers, were all played with a focus on winning. If there was a contest, like a poster contest for the fall festival or a cake baking contest for the Girl Scouts Bake Off, both I and my parents expected me to be on the podium. When it came to school, the expectation was that I would make “A”s. You name it. The motivation to participate was heavily focused on the reward at the end.

I believe that competition can be a good thing. It certainly made me try harder. I wanted to be my best. It was fun to compete and win. I didn’t like to lose, but because my Dad emphasized being a good sport, when I didn’t get the outcome I desired, it just made me want to do better the next time. Sometimes I was disappointed in myself, but most of the time I just shook it off because the next opportunity to compete was literally right around the corner (or up the street). It was fun! I loved to play, to challenge myself, and to discover what I was capable of doing. Competition taught me how to push myself, take risks, believe in myself, and focus, as well as how to encourage others, collaborate as a team, and develop a strategy. There was much that was good about the competitive atmosphere I was raised in. Yet, competition can come at a cost when it focuses too heavily on the outcomes.

The Cost of Competition

The cost of competition comes when we fail to focus on the gifts of the process and focus entirely on the outcomes instead. When the desired results are not obtained do we lose sight of the value in the journey? What if you do your best and you still do not get what you expected? What then? Could it be that the true value in life is not found in the outcome, but rather in the commitment to a process regardless of the results?

This is a difficult thing to say as an avid sports fan! (Go Dawgs!) When I watch my beloved Georgia Bulldogs every fall, my emotional wellbeing is completely linked to the outcome of the game! If we lose to Alabama, I don’t celebrate everything the Dawgs did right and say there’s a lot of good stuff from that game that we can learn from. No! I cuss, and scream, and rant, and rave! It’s all about the outcome isn’t it?! (If you have lived in the south and/or enjoyed an affiliation with SEC football, you know what I’m talking about!) Yet, this approach is not the healthiest when applied to life (nor when applied to sports, but I’m not mature enough as a human to claim that perspective😜).

Life is not an end sum game, especially when we understand the abundance of variables that make outcomes outside of our control. For example, you can study hard, earn all the right degrees, gain tons of experience, and nail the job interview, and yet someone else can be awarded the job. You can live a good, clean lifestyle, eat right, run five days a week, and still have a heart attack at age 50. You can be a kind person, give to others, love generously, and still suffer great tragedy and loss in life.

Some people hold an unfortunate belief that people get what they deserve. In some cases, this may be true. The outcomes experienced may be a direct consequence of the person’s actions. Yet, there are times… many times… when what a person is dealt in life has nothing to do with failure or achievement on their part. It simply is the way it is. What is harmful and sometimes dangerous is the belief that who we are and what we do equals what we receive. In theological terms, this is known as works righteousness. Such thinking removes grace and focuses on a direct correlation between us and what we get.

In life, there is much that is outside of our control. We cannot control other people. We cannot control nature. We cannot control the reality that sometimes things just happen. As much as we may try, we cannot control all the circumstances of our lives. Much in the world is random and unpredictable. The world is not rational and orderly. In fact, you might say that life is an ongoing process of bringing some order out of the mess. One way to interpret the Judeo Christian creation story is that God creates out of the chaos (i.e., Genesis 1:2 says that God takes that that is without shape and gives it form). If you believe this understanding, you might say that life is an ongoing process between you and the Divine, a process of asking what is mine to do and then doing that, trusting that the outcome is NOT the point.

What About Goals?

I used to think that everything was within my power if I just set my mind to it. Most of my life as a young person and young adult proved this to be true. I rarely came up against something that I wanted to do or achieve that was out of my reach. My usual way of doing life was to set a goal, muster up all my determination, work hard, and achieve that goal. When I look back I understand that this is skewed by the fact that I tended to stay in my lane, attempting only the things that I was good at, not intentionally but naturally. I was good at creative stuff, I was good at academics, I was good at leadership, so those became the arenas within which I lived. Yet, I never pursued music, or sports (on a formal level), or something like learning a foreign language (in fact I actively did not pursue this because it did not come easily to me). I stuck to what I knew and the places where I thought I would succeed. Now I wonder, was this because these were the things that I enjoyed, or was it because these were the areas in which I knew I could succeed?

It seems that my goals were heavily determined by the expected outcomes. I set goals that reflected my predetermined capabilities. As I grew older, I defined myself more and more by my achievements. I based a lot of my identity on my accomplishments instead of who I am at a deeper level. My deeper level awareness was there, but a cloud of the external expectations was always hanging over me. Often, my satisfaction with my own life became dependent upon my ability to succeed (i.e., an external measure) and not on my ability to value the process itself (i.e., an internal measure).

Focusing on Process Instead of Outcomes

Setting goals can be a good thing if the goals have the right focus. Yet, setting goals can be a bad thing if they are based primarily on what is outside of your control. Goals give us something to focus on. I understand this because personally having a focus helps me. What is the adage, “Aim for nothing and you will hit it every time?” Yet, if I’m not careful I can become overly obsessed with the outcome and judge everything, including myself, with regard to whether that outcome is achieved.

For example if I set a goal to lose weight, I might say I want to lose 15 pounds before my trip at the end of the summer. I can work hard at eating fruits, vegetable, lean proteins, and whole grains. I can track what I eat and stay within my calorie range. I can exercise at the gym 3 days a week and achieve my step count every day. I can meditate and get enough sleep. I can do all these things religiously and still only lose 10.5 pounds. Am I a failure? I didn’t hit my goal. Maybe I’ll be so disappointed that I forget the plan, start eating unhealthy foods again and stop exercising. “Who cares?” I might say. “It’s useless. I didn’t lose the weight even though I followed the plan.” Hmm… maybe that’s the problem. Focusing on the expected outcome has robbed me of the gains, the true gifts and changes that have occurred independent of the expected outcome.

What if the true value of a goal is found in a focus that is independent of an outcome? What if setting a goal means focusing only on the things within my control, like the process? For example, what if instead of a goal to lose a certain amount of weight by the time of my trip, my goal is to follow my plan consistently until the time of my trip? This is a different kind of goal. This type of goal focuses on what is within my control and lets go of the need for a particular outcome.

Making Room for Possibility

Making room for possibility involves letting go of expected outcomes. When your priority is reaching the end result you are only satisfied when this end is reached. Everything becomes about what happens at the end of the process and misses the value of the process itself. Also, if the outcome is the goal and the outcome is based on external measures, you are placing your happiness, contentment, and overall wellbeing in the realm of the external. Such external focus fails to value internal gifts and gains that come from your commitment to the journey. These gifts and gains are results, but they are not predetermined results. They are manifestations of what is possible when your commitment is to the process.

Letting go of the need for any expected outcome means simply following the process and seeing what happens. This allows your joy to come from what you are actively doing. It also allows your joy to come from what is beyond you, what emerges from the realm of possibility. Every time you take a step in a meaningful process, you are actively being the type of person that is important to you. This is a win, in and of itself. You are practicing being your best self. The results this will bring are outside of your control, which is fine because practicing the process is the point. In the example above, when the goal shifts from weight loss to being healthier, the focus shifts from a number on the scale to the commitment to a healthier lifestyle. With each step in the process you are being who you want to be (i.e., healthier). How much weight you will lose is unknown. Who you are is known. You are a person who is practicing a healthier lifestyle and that is a known and positive thing!

The point is to trust in growth. We plant the seeds, water the seeds, but the growth is outside of our control. What emerges is where possibility comes in. We do our part. That is all that we can do. Being as consistent as possible, we continue on. Not perfectly, but trustingly… we continue. Without judgement, without comparison, we focus on what is ours to do. We continue in what we have determined to be good. We work and learn, adjust and redirect, adapt and recommit. We continue the journey and focus on the process. Then one day, we see it. We have changed.

Maybe what happens is completely unexpected and more beautiful than we ever could have imagined. The outcome is the surprise! The outcome is the part that we cannot control. We may not win the race, be at the weight we thought, have the relationships we imagined, be working in the job we dreamed of, but… we may discover that we are exactly where we need to be in this moment because in this moment we are engaging life. Life is NOT an end sum game. Life is a path and our responsibility is to do the walking. Where life takes us is unknown. We just need to believe that it is possible to receive what it is that we need, even if that isn’t the outcome we might have expected.

With love and gratitude,