However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

Sir Winston Churchill

In the mid 1500s, a new tuber, the potato, was discovered in the New World by Spanish conquistadors. The conquistadors noticed that the Incas heavily relied on what they called chuñu as a reliable food source. This unique food was created by dehydrating a potato and then mashing it into a form that could be stored for up to ten years at room temperature without spoiling. Seeing its utility and resilience to climate, rainfall, and soil, the Spaniards decided to bring potatoes to Europe when space aboard their ships permitted.

By the 1600s, the potato was found in most of Eastern Europe, but it was not given a warm welcome. Most Spanish farmers grew potatoes in small patches only as cheap feed given to their livestock. Most other Europeans considered the tuber unfit for human consumption: they looked at the misshapen dirty vegetable with distaste and suspicion. They often strayed from touching the potatoes since they were brought from a distant heathen civilization, and were even more averse when the potatoes’ shape occasionally resembled nightshade and other plants associated with witches and devils. Only the animals and starving poor in Europe would eat the plant out of necessity.

A century later, in the 1700s, Prussia faced several food shortages and erratic fluctuations in the price of bread, a staple for the people. Frederick the Great of Prussia saw the potato as a potential solution to the disrupting force of famines and food shortages. He decided that the potato’s resilient nature and ease of growing would be a great compliment to the nation’s food supply and it would alleviate pressure on having large grain crops for bread. He confidently speculated that the potato would lower the price of bread and give his rule more stability.

Unfortunately, he faced the daunting challenge of removing the people’s prejudice against the tuber. For over one hundred years, people had built up their mistrust and avoided eating the potato, and it wouldn’t change easily overnight. So when he issued a royal order in 1774 for his subjects to grow potatoes as protection against famine, his subjects mostly complained and ignored it. One town even frankly replied to the king by saying, “The things have neither smell nor taste, not even the dogs will eat them, so what use are they to us?”

Defeated by the populace’s enthusiastic denouncement of his order, King Frederick had to plan his next move carefully.

Being King of Prussia, he had several resources at his disposal for making a more forceful edict. It would have been easy to demand that potatoes be rationed in place of bread, thus, forcing it on the populace, but that wasn’t a route Frederick wanted to take. Instead of removing their prejudice by another more forceful order, he decided to use a bit of reverse psychology so that the peasants might persuade themselves that potatoes were a good idea.

His new indirect approach began when he planted a great number of potato plants in a royal field. After planting the potatoes, he ordered (in a fashion that would make it known to the public) a heavy guard stationed at the field to protect his prize crops from thieves. Every dozen yards or so, a fully armed guard stood alert as instructed, day and night, rain and shine. To draw additional attention, he would occasionally allow the wealthy to visit the field and take some of the plants home to serve at their dinner table.

The nearby peasants became quite interested in their king’s newly guarded treasure. They logically assumed that anything worth guarding was worth stealing, and naturally wanted to get their hands on it. So they acted on secret plans to sneak into the field and snatch the plants for their own gardens. Unbeknownst to them, the guards all had a more important and secret order direct from the king. They were told to let the peasants successfully “steal” the potato. Soon, the potato was a common addition to the average Prussian’s diet (and German potato salad was born) all thanks to a genius play on the king’s part.

Although orders may force change, and arguments may win courtroom battles and panel discussions, they are not always effective means for gathering support from those that do not already share your views. Frederick realized that an order through force might easily backfire, so he changed his strategy and successfully reached his goal. Would history have been different if he hadn’t? Quite possibly. Just imagine what history books would be like if Pyrrhus of Epirus would have only changed his strategy.

Over two thousand years ago, Pyrrhus, king of the Greek nation of Epirus, heeded a call for help from the city of Tarentum in southern Italy. The Greek inhabitants of Tarentum were facing certain subjugation by the growing Roman presence in the north and asked Pyrrhus to become their protectorate. He agreed to come to their aid, but he didn’t do so purely from a noble desire to protect, instead, he also decided this opportunity fit well with his own goal of building an empire by conquering the fledgling Roman Republic and all of Italy.

So, in 280 BC, Pyrrhus arrived on the Italian peninsula with his first wave of 25,000 soldiers and set out to protect Tarentum until his reinforcement troops were assembled and prepared for the upcoming offensive. Shortly after landfall, he caught wind that a Roman army was already marching to attack him, and plundering the countryside along the way. After a bit of thought, he decided it was better to immediately meet them in the field of battle and stop them from gaining momentum. Yet, quite counter to his goal of conquest, he surprisingly sent out a messenger requesting the Roman general to allow them to arbitrate terms of peace between the Greek cities and Rome. When Pyrrhus received the reply that the Romans didn’t want him to act as an arbitrator, nor did they feel threatened by his army, he angrily hastened his first wave of troops to battle.

The two armies met at the river Siris when the Romans were just starting to cross it. Pyrrhus, sensing his infantry were disorganized and believing a quick attack would throw his enemy into greater disarray, personally led his cavalry in a charge while leaving instructions for the generals to get the troops in battle formations. The cavalry charge was, for the most part, not as effective as Pyrrhus had hoped, and the day of battle feverishly continued with at least a half-dozen tipping points where either side could have sworn victory was at hand. However, by the end of the battle, Pyrrhus claimed victory as the Roman army deserted their camp and retreated. Yet, in that one battlefield victory he had suffered the loss of his most trustworthy officers and many among his ranks that he called friends.

After the battle, Pyrrhus again decided to sue for peace instead of continuing with his goal of military conquest, and sent his friend and talented orator, Kineas, to Rome on his behalf. This move ultimately backfired as the Romans assumed Pyrrhus was not as strong as they feared, and the Roman senate responded with a pledge to defeat the Greek army so long as it marched on the Italian peninsula.

Pyrrhus, realizing that his time was running out, posthaste marched his troops to the enemy city of Asculum in hopes of capturing a more decisive victory. In his rush to outmaneuver the Roman army, he again found himself fighting along the unfriendly banks of a river, and much like the battle near the river Siris, he claimed a victory at the end of the day but at the cost of his most irreplaceable generals.*

* The modern term “Pyrrhic Victory” is directly derived from an account of these crippling casualties while defeating the Romans at the battles of Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279. After the latter battle, the Greek historian Plutarch reported:

“The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders;”

At this same time, a Sicilian envoy arrived begging Pyrrhus to bring his army south to protect them from the Carthaginians in return for their allegiance. Having just tasted the same bittersweet victory as before, Pyrrhus reasoned that this new opportunity would make a fair replacement for his original plans. He believed he could easily conquer Sicily and potentially use it as a launching pad to North Africa or other Mediterranean nations. So he promptly abandoned his goal of defeating the Romans, and turned his army south toward Sicily instead.

This new venture soon rewarded him with one military victory after another, driving the Carthaginians into a fast retreat. In no time, the island of Sicily was under his military control. Although elated and amidst the consolidation of his political control of Sicily, his spirit was quickly dampened by bad news. Back in Tarentum, the small defensive force he left behind was under siege by the Romans and was certain defeat was just moments away.

Pyrrhus, feeling obliged to fix this spoiled situation, again changed his immediate goal of consolidating power in Sicily and headed back to fight the Romans in a rematch. Arriving at Tarentum, he learned that the enemy was encamped nearby and awaiting reinforcements. In another posthaste move to gain a presumed tactical advantage, Pyrrhus led his army through dense wooded country by torchlight during the dead of night. When daylight broke, Pyrrhus’ army, although in range to attack, was scattered, disorganized, and thoroughly confused. The Roman general immediately saw his opportunity to route the Greeks and, without much trouble, did so by the end of the day. Thus, Pyrrhus’ defeat on Italian soil was absolute, and the Romans staked their first reputable claim as an important political and military force to be reckoned with.

So what does a story about eating potatoes and managing an army of troops on foreign soil have to do with reaching your goals? Well, if you are in a position of power, perhaps they gave you a few pithy insights to planning military campaigns or working well with others. Chances are you are not in a position of power quite like Pyrrhus or Frederick, but their stories still have a very important underlying point to goal pursuit, which is uncovered in the following question. How many times have you set out to accomplish a goal and then later found yourself no further along than any other previous attempt?

If you have had little success pursuing your goals then you should look at the strategies you are employing. Are you often buying the newest exercise equipment or video workout in hopes of finding the motivation you desperately need to lose weight? Do you start a dozen different projects full of zeal only to find that a month later you are out of gusto? If you follow the same pattern of committing to a goal and then applying the same strategy that has failed over and over again, then by Einstein’s definition, you are insane.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

To find change you need to rethink the problem and tweak your strategy based on previous results and any new knowledge you’ve picked up along the way.

So where is a good starting point for changing your strategy? Going back to Muraven and Baumeister’s research, they determined that goal pursuit was hampered by one of three factors, and then to clarify I expanded those three factors to four specific points. I’m going to repeat them one more time because they lay the foundation for rest of the chapters and any goal-reaching strategy must deal with each of these points:

1. People fail to realize the power of real goals.
2. They continually jeopardize achievement by lack of mental awareness.
3. Most importantly, they fail to leverage their strongest hardwired tool for goal pursuit.
4. Lastly, monitoring progress is important, but should be secondary to recognizing success.

The first place to revisit is your goal. What makes the difference between your everyday goals and a life changing, world-conquering goal? How can you change your goals, or the way you pursue them, to see different results? Should your goals be easy to reach, should they change in response to failure, and are they really even necessary?

We’ll answer those questions soon enough, but the first step in breaking the insanity of goal pursuit is to recognize that changing your strategy (not your goal) is important if previous results weren’t what you expected. Changing your goal is embracing defeat when you do it solely in response to a single failure.

Like the King of Prussia, don’t be afraid to try a new approach, a new strategy, when you initially experience setbacks. Likewise, don’t be like Pyrrhus and keep rushing into battle with the same strategy when it has given undesirable results, and don’t change goals because you see a lack of progress. Be willing to open your mind to a new approach when your old approach hasn’t been so successful, even if the new approach sounds counter-intuitive (guard the potatoes that you want people to steal?). You might be surprised how much easier it is to reach some goals when you simply change your strategy.

Principle 2
…
Don’t change goals, change strategies.
…