"What is the best way to achieve your goal with minimal loss or effort? -- You ask.
It depends on the type of goal we have in mind. As I scientist, my main goal is to look for the unknown and advance knowledge in may area of expertise. To achieve this goal is inconsistent with the idea of minimal loss or effort. As you certainly know, Thomas Edison once remarked that geniuses are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, that is, hard work. This statement echoes in Eistein's idea that it is only in dictionaires that the word "success" appears first than the term "work". So, if our goal is demanding, we cannot think of minimal loss or effort. The idea of minimal loss or effort reminds me of, say, intellectual laziness, not the idea of achieving a worthwile goal. It is rarely, if ever, to achieve our goad because of luck. But is it may happen at times. It is often said that luck helps those who work hardly. Of course, education often is behind one's achievements. And it is indeed the case that some opportunities (e.g., to have excellent professors) are more likely to help us achieving our main goals. The idea of attaining my main goals as a scientist and reseacher with minimal loss or effort makes me think of ordinary and not demading goals. In a nutshell, when our goals are demanding, we have to follow a demandind track, not a shortcut. Most of the time, shortcuts lead us nowhere at its worst, or to a place or situations we did not intend.