Lately I have been very focused on outcomes. Not on objectives or goals, not on results, but on outcomes. My friends, colleagues and you readers have asked me what is really the difference and how is it related to my personal brand. I hope that I can clarify what I mean and help you with your brand progress by turning your focus to outcomes rather than objectives and results.
Let us take food as an example. You have a problem: you are hungry. Since you already know what you need to solve the problem your objective is to find some food and eat it. The result you get if you eat is that you solve the problem of being hungry and you restore the energy level in your body. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?
Ok, so you are hungry and you are passing a fast food chain and they have food, which will certainly solve the problem of being hungry and a higher energy level. What I did not do is take into consideration other factors like secondary and long term effects of this decision.
Your desired outcome might instead have been to restore the energy to the correct level that will have positive longtime and secondary effects such as a maintaining your weight over time, not being in the risk zone for diabetes and cardiac diseases or to be able to work more efficiently over the next couple of hours since the meal was balanced.
If you know your desired outcomes, your life will be much easier and making decisions a much quicker process.
So how does this apply to my personal brand? It does actually affect it on several levels, one being that knowing your desired outcomes is a part of knowing who you are, another that when you work on your goals, visions and objectives, you should always keep the outcomes in mind.
Anthony Robbins has developed the OPA methodology (Outcomes – Purpose – Action) which is included in The Time Of Your Life Program, which I can recommend.
Another good read is The Secret that deals with the fact that if your are focusing on the outcomes you want, and not on the things you do not want, you will eventually get it.
At last, a word from a favoudite of mine, Stephen R. Covey: “Begin with the end in mind.”
How do you work with your outcomes?
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Ola Rynge is an entrepreneur with a passion for the personal development side of personal branding (covered in this blog) as well as the application of personal branding and social media for entrepreneurs and small businesses (covered in The Rynge Blog).
His company, The Rynge Group specializes in market oriented small business and idea development, including social media strategies and implementations.
