Controllable Goals
Set goals inside your control (inputs), not outcomes you can't guarantee
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Orosz distinguishes 'good goals' from 'bad goals' by one test: can you control the outcome? Promotions, project leads, and subscriber counts depend on others and the market, so they're bad goals. Learning a language, leaving work by 5pm, or writing once a month are things you fully control — set those, and results tend to follow.
Origin
A framework Gergely Orosz used with his own reports when he was an engineering manager at Uber, and then applied to his own blogging and newsletter journey.
Core principles
- 01A goal you don't control (promotion, 20k subscribers) sets you up to feel like a failure regardless of effort
- 02A good goal is an input behavior you can execute regardless of outcome
- 03Input goals compound — consistent writing makes you a better writer and may attract an audience as a byproduct
- 04Grounding yourself in controllable goals reduces the anxiety of ambiguous external validation
How to run it
- 1
Draft the outcome you actually want
Name the tempting outcome goal — 'get promoted', 'lead this big project', 'hit 20,000 subscribers'. Recognize it as motivating but outside your control.
Watch out Outcome goals feel ambitious but hand your sense of success to forces you can't govern.
- 2
Convert it into a controllable input
Translate the outcome into a behavior you can execute regardless of result — 'write once a month', 'learn this language this year', 'share something whenever I learn it'.
Pro tip Make the input small enough that you can be genuinely proud of hitting it (Orosz's first blog goal was simply 'write once a month').
- 3
Judge yourself only on the input
Measure success by whether you did the controllable thing, letting the external outcomes accrue as byproducts you don't grade yourself on.
Watch out Orosz notes external goals are 'kind of meaningless' — internal ones you either smash or miss, so anchor on the ones you own.
In the wild
As an Uber manager, Orosz told his people to avoid goals like 'I want to be promoted' or 'lead this big project' because they aren't in your control, and instead set goals like 'learn this new language' or 'leave work at 5pm on Friday to be home with family'.
→ Goals framed as controllable inputs are actionable and reduce the frustration of chasing outcomes gated by others.
Orosz's initial blogging goal was simply to write once a month, and to share whenever he learned something — both fully in his control.
→ He kept it up over years, became a better writer, and eventually the audience and business followed as byproducts he never originally targeted.
Common mistakes
Setting outcome goals you can't control
Aiming at a subscriber count or a promotion means your success depends on other people and the market; you can do everything right and still 'fail', which corrodes motivation.
Grading yourself on external validation
Orosz found subscriber numbers brought 'a bunch of stress I didn't expect' and that external goals are meaningless — judging yourself by them leaves you constantly unsure how you're doing.
Is it for you?
Best for
Ambitious professionals and creators prone to anxiety over outcomes they don't fully control
Not ideal for
Contexts where a hard external target (a sales quota, a launch date) is genuinely the required deliverable
From the transcript
“one is good goal you know people will set this goal I want to be promoted”
“and those are bad goals because it's not in your control”
“a good goal is what you can do so a good goal for example is I want to learn this new language”
“external goals are kind of meaningless internal goals either you smash them or or you don't reach them”
From the episode
Leaving big tech to build the #1 technology newsletter
Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer)