Processes Are Only as Good As The Goals They Are Striving to Achieve

By: Kyle Spears

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin was a very influential book early in my coaching career. In it, he discusses how cultivating deep focus and establishing strong processes enabled him to master both Tai Chi and chess. He emphasizes that the process should be the primary focus in any endeavor, rather than obsessing over winning.

What often gets missed, however, is that on his way up in both disciplines, Waitzkin did focus intensely on winning—and the processes naturally fell into place because winning was his ultimate goal.

Years later, in a podcast with Andrew Huberman, Waitzkin reflected on the new generation of kids rising in the chess world and their process-focused parents. He noted how a lack of competitive drive often plagued the children of those parents. These parents studied what the masters did, then preached those rituals to their kids. The problem is that blindly adopting someone else's rituals will never surpass the level of the player who originally created or mastered them—especially when others are now implementing the same practices.

In The Science of Scaling, Dr. Benjamin Hardy focuses on three key areas to help businesses (and individuals) scale: your Goal, your Floor, and your Focus. By implementing these three elements, you can build genuine competitive drive while simultaneously cultivating innovative, personalized processes—by ruthlessly eliminating distractions and zeroing in on what truly moves the needle toward your goal.

Goal

Early in my coaching career, I often let athletes get away with vague goals like “get better” or “see how far I can take the sport.” While this sounds admirable, it also gives them an easy out from negative emotions after a bad performance, training session, or season. They can simply say, “I tried my best,” then go back to “refining their processes.”

But if you're truly competing, negative emotions should accompany poor performance—just as positive ones should follow strong results. A clear, ambitious goal holds you accountable. Even if it's never fully achieved, it forces honest reflection on both successes and failures, driving continuous improvement—and, crucially, improvement at a rate faster than you ever thought possible.

For a goal to truly matter, it must feel impossible and unattainable. It has to scare you. That fear is what enables you to raise your floor and sharpen your focus.

Floor

Once you've set the goal, raising your floor is how you develop the new processes needed to achieve it. Your floor is your reliable baseline—the level you always fall back to. In competition, the closer your floor is to your ceiling, the greater your chances of consistent success.

Raising your floor means stripping away anything that pulls you away from the goal: bad habits, distractions, or misaligned activities. It also requires implementing better processes. This phase involves learning what top performers do—then doing it better or adapting it in a way that uniquely suits you.

Every athlete I've worked with is different, even when chasing similar outcomes. The Netflix series Quarterbacks gave a great glimpse into this. One memorable moment shows Kirk Cousins in a bookstore, picking up a book about Dwyane Wade and explaining how he loves studying other athletes' processes. Yet when you examine Cousins' own routines, they look completely different from those of the other quarterbacks featured in that season.

You must discover what works for you and eliminate everything that doesn't drive you closer to the goal.

Focus

Finally, Dr. Hardy discusses focus. Throughout an athletic career, distractions abound. You might want to run a Hyrox race or compete in a CrossFit event, even with high aspirations in one primary sport. Or you could go out with friends, start a side business, etc.

The point of this section is to build discipline around your goal. Don't chase a million different things, even if you've had past success in them. Stay true to what got you this far. You'll constantly refine your approach, but that refinement should serve the goal—not convenience or ease.

In our world of cell phones and instant gratification, maintaining focus is a lifelong practice if we want to master it.

Athletic pursuits are scary. You're constantly riddled with anxiety: Did I do enough? Did I push hard enough in that session? Am I on the right path? That's okay—it's part of chasing something big (relative to your own standards). You'll experience negative emotions, and your job is to process them, work through them, and emerge as a better person and athlete.

Strip away everything non-essential—especially if you've set a big goal on a tight timeline—and watch how much harder you push in training, knowing each session brings you one step closer to the deadline. Finally, don't lose focus. Stay disciplined with the day-in, day-out dirty work that got you here, and you'll accomplish something great.