Passion is great for understanding our mission (the great purpose of our work) but it can be very distracting when we’re setting up goals (achievable milemarkers).
I get emotional about making stuff
The emotions can lead to black and white thinking…
- Sell out the show or it’s a failure
- Everyone needs to know about this thing
- It’s gotta be the best or it’s a waste of time.
The emotions can lead to abstract thinking…
- I am bad at comedy
- We need to make more money
- We need to get more views
Good goals are clear.
Things only become achieveable when they’re failable. We have to set up an expectation for our goals based on something concrete — usually numbers.
An example of this would be “We need 20 more tickets sold in order to break even.” Getting to this clarity takes responsibility and dispassionate math. It’s not as exciting as “Sell out or die” but “Sell out or die” is daunting, high-stakes, and might not be achievable.