I am somewhat obsessed with methodologies for goal-setting, performance measurement, tracking, and motivation.

When I kept seeing an interesting clip from the movie, Rebel Ridge, starring Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson, I had to watch the whole movie. In the film, Pierre is trying to get his cousin out on bail, not realizing that the system is rigged and nothing he does will work. When he does realize it, he goes to the police station to talk to the Chief. In the clip (attached below), we learn that he is a military instructor who has to deal with a lot of acronyms. The one he’s most interested in is PACE, which he explains was originally designed for Comms systems — priority, alternate, contingency, and emergency.

And it is relatively easy to understand for Comms, even without a military angle. Say, for example, that you are looking after your aging parents and need to stay in regular contact with them. Your primary communication method might be a cellphone if you’re in a city. Your alternate method might be a landline, your contingency might be email or text, and your emergency option might be in-person. Easy-peasy.

However, Pierre’s character notes that it can be used as a planning methodology for various purposes, including his specific goals. In the movie, the Marine’s primary means of retrieving his cousin was to take cash to the courthouse and pay his cousin’s bail. Except the cops intervened and confiscated his cash, at least temporarily. His alternate was a special deal with the Chief, who basically reneged on the deal and f***ed him over. Contingency was an alternate way to replace his cash through other means, but the Chief messed that up, too. Which has the Marine “burning through letters” and they don’t want to see what happens when he gets to E (emergency). As an aside, I keep seeing references to how Rebel Ridge is an homage to First Blood with Pierre as Stallone’s Rambo character, and Johnson in the role of Gault; while the movie’s okay, it’s no First Blood.

Here’s the clip of the scene:

Understanding the elements for planning

While the acronym is a plot device for the film, it is actually a real planning methodology. In the example I used above, there are four methods for communicating with the person’s aging parents on a daily basis:

• P: Primary — Cellphone
• A: Alternate — Landline
• C: Contingency — Maybe email or text
• E: Emergency — In-person

For the movie, it was:

• P: Primary — Cash in backpack
• A: Alternate — Deal with chief
• C: Contingency — Alternate cash being wired
• E: Emergency — The second half of the movie

You can easily see how that would/could also apply to a military or rescue system for communications. Essentially, sliding down a scale of expected utility and effectiveness to what may be a last-ditch method:

• P: Primary — Top of the line encrypted comms
• A: Alternate — Cellphone
• C: Contingency — Public systems
• E: Emergency — Short-wave radio

In different scenarios, the order might change or there might be totally different options including walkie talkies, flags, etc.

It seemed awesome and fairly robust as a tool. When I searched online for other examples where it was being used, I found a bunch of suggestions, with probably the most likely one being fitness. One example of this use is shown below.

• P: Primary — Full gym workout + fully controlled diet for all meals and snacks
• A: Alternate — Home workout with hand weights + pre-prepared meals
• C: Contingency — Rest day + healthy meal choices for take-out
• E: Emergency — Minimal activity + multi-vitamins

Again, it looks good. And with its focus on “other options”, it would work well where goals might have multiple paths to achieve them on any given day. Scalability seems baked in, hierachy/priority preference, etc. And if the military is using it, that’s an added plus — not because it’s the military, but simply because they can test it with people of different mental attitudes and approaches, and see if it works.

But can I use PACE for other types of goals? Let’s start by recasting previous examples into an easier-to-compare tool.

It starts to look like you CAN, indeed, use it for other goals. Except when you start looking at rows 1 and 2 against 3, you notice some differences.

First and foremost, the goal is changing from something concrete and discrete — communicate with someone, bail out cousin — to something more general like “exercise”.

Second, while all three have hierarchical levels between P, A, C and E, the exercise ones are not quite replaceable choices. With Comms, it doesn’t matter whether you use a full in-house solution for Comms or a cellphone or even short wave radio. While encryption and privacy were nice to have, they weren’t critical to the goal — the goal is communications. Any of the four options meet that goal. Similarly, for the movie example…any of the four options can get the cousin out of jail. While P is easier than A, C or E, they all accomplish the goal.

When it comes to the exercise goal, though, the solutions are not equal. A full gym workout is great, and is the primary method **if you can do it that day**. If you can’t, for whatever reason, you move to alternate which is a home workout with hand weights. It’s not as good, but sure, if your goal is exercise in general, it meets the criteria. But then you come to C being perhaps a rest day or D minimal activity when your body needs to heal. Neither of those are meeting the original goal. They are hierachical, definitely, but they are NOT equal alternatives. Similarly for the food, the first option is to do full diet control for proteins and minerals, and carbs for fuel. And moving to A or C could arguably be listed as “fuel without ingesting crappy food” that might work against your health goals. But by the time you get to E, and you’re down to just multi-vitamins, that is not an equivalent method to achieve the same thing. Or, more pointedly, you could take MVs on ANY of the four options too.

For the food, it might be more like Primary being fully self-prepared meals from healthy ingredients + portion control + healthy recipe; Alternate might be pre-prepared healthy meals that use organic ingredients + portion control, more steaming / less frying, etc.; Contigency might be that it may not be completely “healthy” eating, but it was all prepared at home, less processed foods, etc.; and the emergency food fuel might be takeout, but at least healthier takeout choices. They are NOT all the same, but at least they are meeting the goal of portion-controlled healthier fuel. If you want to add MVs to all four options, great, although that is no longer really a “goal” that is suitable for PACE as you are in a binary world — you either take your MVs or not.

So, while it looks like you CAN use PACE for multiple options, you may have to alter your goal or your alignment of options to the goal so they are all equivalent. Which is not often the way personal goals tend to work.

Now I have to figure out if it will work for MY personal goals. Wish me luck.