The Success Paradox

What would you like to accomplish? Right now, we as a community have some pretty big goals:

• We want to launch an awesome Minecraft gamer community
• We want the community to build a massive world, story, and game together: a virtual universe
• We want use our gaming universe as a simulated world for gamified education and personal development
• We want this learning community to grow as complete people and make IRL impact.

These are some big goals! An we can’t reach such an ambitious agenda by repeated thinking about how awesome it is. Instead, we have to build the reality we want to see step-by-step. This is the success paradox: you can’t achieve a big purpose directly. Too many outside factors will determine your success. But you can set up a system of behaviors that put you into to position to achieve your goal.

This idea that to accomplish something great, you must focus instead on the path is nothing new:

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?

Mark 8:34-37 ESV

Jesus
Founder of Christianity

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

Lao Tzu
Legendary author of the Tao Te Ching

Let’s do a little research on goals vs systems. To start off here’s a video by Adam Alter, NYU Stern School of Business Professor and New York Time best selling author:

Do some more research on this top and we’ll compare notes to see what ideas we have for systematizing our goals.