bar-setting vs moon-shooting, part 1

there’s a Garfield comic strip, and a song by Guy Clark, and Douglas Adam’s concept of “missing the ground” in order to fly. all of these allude to the importance of belief in being able to do something potentially out-of-reach. the idea is that if you don’t know you ‘can’t’ do something, sometimes you end up being able to find the one little path to success through the hugely biased landscape full of failed outcomes. the other way to frame this is that of course belief can affect our ability to do a thing. just think of the concept of momentum in sports psychology, or how confidence gives us that little edge to hit the right beat in conversation, in a fight, even in thinking through something complex like a math problem or a multi-person social dynamic.

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this is a prelude to a slightly different idea. when trying to accomplish a thing, i propose that there are two styles of ways to go about it. these two styles represent ends of a gradient, and can be intertwined. each style can also be applied to different aspects of a complex task, but the recognition of the consequences of each style is important.

moon-shooting

the first style is to work as hard as you can towards the best outcome you can imagine. to me this has resonance with the ideas in the first paragraph here, and i call this approach “moon-shooting”. it’s the all-out battle, it’s the “leave everything on the pitch” way to go. this way of doing things has the benefit of not falling short due to an a priori underestimation of our ability to achieve a thing.

if you’re a soccer/football goalie, and something in you decides pre-emptively that you can’t save a shot, you might pull back a tiny bit as you’re going for it. if you believe against all hope that you can make it, you might just make it. now let’s be clear, there are going to be a lot of cases where the difference in outcome is not dependent on your belief. but there are going to be a few cases where it makes all the difference that you either have or don’t have that tiny edge of timing and effort that comes from your confidence. in complex systems with enough chaotic tendencies, those “few” cases can really add up.

and in the case of allocating resources, it’s not just about belief, it’s also about giving your goals enough resources and energy-backing to actually make it to the moon. it’s about saying “yes, i will get this done whatever it takes” and by doing so, potentially increasing the chances of getting to your goal. and sometimes, especially when it’s difficult to estimate ahead of time the amount of resources required, this all-or-nothing approach IS the best route to success.

i’d suggest that moon-shooting also often feels and looks better. there’s no doubt that you’ve failed to put it all out there. there’s none of the doubt that comes from feeling that by pre-emptively holding yourself back, YOU and your decision-making were the key reason for failure.

however, moon-shooting is not a systemically-balanced approach. moon-shooting is about leaving it all out there on the pitch, while saving none for the rest of the system (see: friends, family, society, older you, etc). moon-shooting is an energy sink, a systemic vampire.

bar-setting

bar-setting is the other approach. bar-setting recognizes that for a human and for human systems, there is almost never only one goal on the table. bar-setting is saying “for this particular goal, here is an achievable picture of moderate success, and i will work towards this version of the goal and not extend myself any further”. bar-setting is taking responsibility for how much effort a specific problem deserves and deciding where to allocate resources pre-emptively (perhaps with adaptation along the way; like i said these two styles represent ends of a gradient).

bar-setting assumes that you need to save energy and resources for other goals, and that while a given goal might be first priority; it is unlikely to be your only priority. many of the systems we care about are kept afloat by many things. bar-setting also addresses the fact that in some cases, moon-shooting can result in catastrophic as opposed to controlled failure. belief and committed effort make a difference, but they cannot entirely overwrite the laws of physics, and when you give it your “all” sometimes the world gobbles up your all and you’re left with nothing. sometimes the full-throttle leap of faith lands you triumphantly on the other side of the gap, sometimes it was just too big of a gap for faith and full-throttle to make up the difference.

to be continued

this is getting abstract and a little repetitive, so i’m going to return later with some better examples when i next have a moment to sit down with this. if this were a carpentry project, for now there’re still bits that aren’t designed yet, other cut pieces that need to be drilled and put together, and lots of rough edges and unvarnished surfaces.

the toolbox is not a box of competitors

lastly, i want to emphasize that this is NOT an analysis of which is better. bar-setting and moon-shooting are both appropriate styles of work, but like types of bikes, types of shampoo, or types of guitar, the choice of the tool depends on your setting and your goals.

a disclaimer

this blog will be flawed in an attribution sense, in that my ideas come from all sorts of places, and some of them ought to be attributed to certain people or groups whose names i have forgotten.

many of my analogies and idea-tools are substantially modified or remixed or born from first principles in my head, and these i feel pretty good about sharing. many others will have been lifted from other places and people, or will have evolved in similar enough environments that they are convergent with other ideas elsewhere.

i have long worried about the validity of sharing my ideas given the risk of overlap with other thinkers. however, in the spirit of DIYdeaing, i’m going to accept that even though many other people have DIY’d their own tables or tortilla presses, it’s worthwhile for me to try building my own as well. of course, ideas are more promiscuous and copy-able than physical objects, but at the very least i’ll be practicing my own thinking.

now to the point of this disclaimer: i hope that readers will forgive me when they see unattributed ideas that sound much like things that appear elsewhere, and i invite you to make suggestions for folks i should read / attribute / etc.