The Counterintuitive Secret to Solving Big Problems

You can’t care about everything. And that’s a good thing! In social impact work, trying to address every facet of a complex problem often means losing sight of your core mission. The key is to pick your battles, focus on a specific target, and hold yourself accountable. This approach doesn’t just make your efforts more manageable, it amplifies your impact.

Mission Creep 

Mission creep in the military is when forces enter a conflict with one clear mission but slowly get dragged into more, often unrelated, commitments, leading to longer deployments, higher risks, and a messy strategy that wasn’t part of the original plan.

The same thing happens in social impact projects. You start with a clear goal and purpose, ready to tackle one specific problem. But soon, you realise the issue is tangled up in a web of intergenerational and cultural complexities that go way beyond your initial intervention. You didn't come to do a half-hearted job, so you start expanding your focus.

For example, you launch a project in a rural community to tackle obesity by teaching healthy eating and cooking skills. But soon you discover the problem isn’t just about knowledge, it’s also about access to fresh food, cultural eating habits, economic challenges, and even mental health

Suddenly, you’re not just teaching cooking classes; you're trying to revamp the local food supply chain, offer mental health support, and develop job training programs. What started as a simple nutrition intervention has snowballed into a multi-faceted mission that’s hard to manage and even harder to measure. This is why it’s crucial to keep your eyes on your original goal, or you risk losing your way and your impact. 

That’s where the danger of mission creep sneaks in, by expanding too much, you dilute your impact and lose sight of your original purpose. Instead, the key is to flip the script: stay specific, and let that sharp focus guide you to scalable solutions within your niche.

Specificity vs Generality 

When it comes to solving problems, it’s tempting to go broad and try to hit every angle, but specificity is your secret weapon. Tackling a broad issue might seem like you're covering all bases, but a specific approach lets you deliver targeted, effective solutions that can actually make a dent. Focusing narrowly allows you to develop general strategies that work well within that specific context and that’s where the magic of scalability happens. 

Take the obesity intervention example. Instead of trying to overhaul the entire community’s food system, stick to what you do best: teaching practical cooking skills using affordable, available ingredients. This specific focus addresses the root problem (lack of knowledge about healthy eating) without getting lost in the weeds of systemic change. As a result, your cooking classes become a repeatable model that can be easily adapted to other communities with similar challenges. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, your approach stays tight, your outcomes are clear, and your impact is measurable. 

By zeroing in on a specific slice of the problem, you avoid the mission creep trap and set yourself up for success within your niche. It’s all about doing one thing really well, rather than doing everything just okay. 

Accountability 

When you're tackling massive problems, it's easy to hide behind the complexity. Broad, sweeping missions can make it hard to track progress, and that lack of clarity becomes a perfect cover for slipping accountability. It’s not that anyone’s trying to dodge responsibility, it’s just that when the problem is too big and too complex, it’s hard to know if you’re actually making a difference. The only way to guard against this is by keeping your focus tight and your goals clear. 

Say your project to combat obesity in a rural community started spiraling into addressing mental health, job creation, and infrastructure. Suddenly, there are so many moving parts that no one knows what success looks like anymore, and impact gets lost in the noise. By sticking to your core intervention (teaching healthy eating) you create specific, measurable goals like class attendance rates, participant feedback, and changes in eating habits. This makes it easy to evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and to hold yourself accountable for delivering results. 

When you keep your focus clear, it’s easier to stay honest about your progress and impact. Accountability isn’t just about taking responsibility. It’s about setting yourself up so you know exactly what to be responsible for. 

Harness your specificity 

In the world of social impact, specificity is your superpower. By narrowing your focus, you avoid the pitfalls of mission creep, create scalable solutions, and maintain accountability. It’s all about doing fewer things really well, rather than getting lost trying to fix everything at once. So, be clear about your mission, stick to your strengths, and watch your impact grow.