Rob Foglia

There’s something I’ve been chewing on a lot lately. If you’ve talked with me recently, you’ve probably heard it come up.

We judge ourselves by the effect, not the cause.

It shows up everywhere. In business, in personal goals, in relationships, in music, in fitness. We look at results, and that’s what we use to determine whether we are succeeding or failing. We stare at outcomes. We obsess over what we can post on social media, or what shows up in our bank account, or whether the plan worked. And if it didn’t, we start telling ourselves a story about how we are falling short.

But here’s the problem. You do not control the effect. You only control the cause.

That came up in a recent business planning session I was leading. One of the agents looked at all the work we were doing and asked why we were digging so deep. She wanted to know why we couldn’t just write down a goal like “three homes a month” and move on. To her, that felt simpler.

But the goal is the effect. That is the result.

What we were doing instead was creating what would be the cause. We were working backwards. If you want to close three homes a month, how many listings do you need? How many buyers? How many listing appointments does that take? How many conversations? How much time do you need to be lead generating every single week?

And when we do that work, we are giving ourselves something we can actually track and measure. Something that is within our control. If all you ever focus on is the result, you are missing the part that actually drives it.

You are missing the cause.

This shift in thinking has been showing up all over my life lately. It has been showing up in my business. It has been showing up in my music. And it has been showing up on the road, because I’m currently training for a half marathon.

Now, I could easily spend the next few months obsessing over my race day time. I could make that one number the entire point of all my effort. That would be focusing on the effect. But race day is only one run. One morning. One snapshot.

What really matters is the 70 or so training runs I’ll do between now and then. The ones in the heat. The ones in the rain. The ones when I’m tired, or busy, or just not feeling it. That’s where the transformation is. That’s the process. That’s the cause. And I have complete control over whether I show up for it.

Same thing with music. It’s tempting to measure success by whether or not I got booked for a big show, or whether a release hit a certain number. Those are just effects. They are outcomes. What I can actually control is whether I’m practicing, whether I’m creating, whether I’m showing up consistently and growing in my craft. That is the part that defines me as a musician. That is the cause.

And here’s what I’ve learned. If you stay consistent with the cause, the effect takes care of itself.

That might not mean immediate results. It might not mean applause. It might not even look like progress at first. But if you stay rooted in the process, something real happens. You start to build a deep kind of confidence, not based on wins but based on integrity. You start to trust yourself more. You start to see progress even before others do.

And that changes everything.

I see so many people get discouraged in business or in life because they are only looking at the outcome. The deal fell through. The post didn’t get traction. The scale didn’t move. The phone didn’t ring. And because they only measured that, they miss all the progress they are making.

That is why I keep coming back to this idea. We judge ourselves by the effect. But we should be judging ourselves by the cause.

Am I showing up?

Am I honoring my commitments?

Am I doing the things that build toward the goal, even when the goal still feels far away?

If the answer is yes, then that is a win.

Because I can’t control what other people say or do. I can’t control the market. I can’t control the algorithm. I can’t control how fast something grows.

But I can control my inputs.

I can control the way I speak to people. I can control my schedule. I can control the way I prepare. I can control how consistent I am with the things that matter.

And when I focus on that, the weight comes off. I stop chasing validation. I stop measuring myself by things that were never mine to control in the first place.

So that’s where I’m putting my energy. I’m pouring into the cause.

If you’re in business, focus on your conversations. Focus on your follow-ups. Focus on the value you’re bringing to the people you serve.

If you’re chasing a personal goal, focus on the inputs. Show up for the workout. Make the healthy choice. Write the next paragraph. Take the next step.

Whatever it is you’re building, pour your effort into the process and let the result take care of itself.

Because who you become during the process is what matters most anyway.

You are the cause.

And the effect will come.