Instead of focusing on your output, which is not controllable, you should determine which input metrics will influence the desired output metric and focus on those instead.
This is the core principle behind, for example, Activity Based Selling: no matter how hard you try, you can’t directly control how much revenue you bring in; you can only control how many calls you make or how many emails you send.
However, this doesn’t mean you should completely ignore your output—that wouldn’t be healthy either. It’s important to know when to stopintelligent failures and look for intelligent failures.
From Working Backwards:
Amazon argues that it’s not enough to know your output metrics. In fact, they go even further, and say that you shouldn’t pay much attention to your output metrics; you should pay attention to the controllable input metrics that you know will affect those output metrics.
From Clear Thinking:
You can put energy into things you control or things you don’t control. All the energy you put toward things you don’t control comes out of the energy you can put toward the things you can.
Also: