“Goal setting: don’t pick the low-hanging fruit,” Christopher Peterson, Psychology Today. “Sometimes the easy things are not the good things. Sometimes expediency gets in the way of efficiency and often in the way of excellence.” A worthwhile read for considering how the goal we set can keep us from the next highest goal: because what gets us to 100 will not get us to 1,000.
Why you should avoid easy goals
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I think it’s an oversimplification to see the low-hanging fruit vs. that higher up as an either-or situation. Often, working on the low-hanging fruit (which is still hanging nonetheless) is a necessary step to engaging in something more challenging. This is particularly true when working in an alliance or partnership is being contemplated. Harvesting low-hanging fruit, sometimes called the “easy win,” helps to improve confidence, fine-tune methods, encourage others to join in, and assess progress (not to mention encouraging donors and prayer-warriors). All are necessary preparations for the bigger prize. Sometimes, the journey is just as important as the destination.
Absolutely. The thing that concerns me is that often we gear ourselves to harvest the low hanging fruit–the “harvest that is ripe”–rather than to focus on harvesting everything including the low hanging and high hanging. Getting the small wins on the way is as you say a well known and excellent energizing tactic. But we must be sure to use strategies that look beyond this.
That’s a smart answer to a difficult quieston.