Hey Team,
Today, I’m wondering what meaningful things you are measuring as you move towards the life you want.
Whenever we start something new we have always have layers of reasons for choosing that practice.
And some of those reasons provide obvious things to measure while the measurements for other layers may take more thought.
But I think the layers that require more thought may just be more meaningful for us overall. They can help us dig into our most important motivations and inspire us to continue even when things get challenging.
Let me illustrate this with an example: imagine that you have decided to journal one page each day.
You may start because you like the idea of journaling, of documenting your life, or of working out some of your feelings on paper.
Your first layer reason for taking on this practice might just be ‘I want to try this.’ and the obvious measurement is whether or not you do the thing. You can check that off on your tracker or on a list or even just in your mind – ‘Yes, I wrote one page today.’
But any practice we take on for our own well-being is not just about the practice itself.
It’s always about how the practice is going to improve our lives and make us feel better .
So, when it comes to journaling, you’re not just trying to fill pages. You’re also seeking something else.
Perhaps you’re also hoping for some peace of mind, to have fewer unfinished thoughts bumping around in your head, or to notice your thought patterns.
Since those changes would be meaningful and would improve your well-being, it would be worthwhile to figure out how to measure whether your practice is leading you towards those things.
Perhaps you could do that by taking a moment every now and then to notice if you feel more peaceful or if your brain feels more at ease and make a note of any differences your find. You could do this whenever it occurs you or you could create regular check-in points.
Measuring these changes over time might look like colour-coding a circle on a chart each day, checking in with yourself one morning a week, or anything else that makes you feel good about paying attention to this element of your life.
Then, on yet another layer, you may be hoping that your journalling gives you some space to react differently in certain situations.
If you always find the drive to work quite stressful but you have been working out your feelings around that in your journal then you may want to measure if your stress level changes overtime. That may involve taking specific time for a different type of reflection or it may just involve asking yourself to occasionally rate your stress levels while driving.
When it comes to your own practices for well-being, it’s worth considering the different layers of change that you are hoping this practice will bring to your life.
(Note: Not every practice will have deep layers but they will all have at least one layer below ‘I’m going to try this.’)
And once you have figured some of those other layers out, it’s definitely worth finding a way to measure them.
That doesn’t mean you have to keep a checklist or add a lot of other tasks to your life, it can be a simple mental check-in at whatever interval makes sense for you and for your new practice.
And remember that when it comes to your well-being qualitative measurements matter as much, if not more, as quantitative ones.
You don’t need to mathematically prove that your practice made you feel better, all you need is to know that it did.* And any measurement that allows you to notice that change is a valid one.
So, Team, whether today finds you measuring something, figuring out how to measure something, exploring what else you are trying to get out of your practice, or doing anything else that helps you move towards the life you want to have, I wish you ease.
And, of course, I offer you this gold star for your efforts.
Go Team Us!
Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please!
* Alternatively, it may help you notice that you’re not feeling much of a difference. And if that’s the case, then you can look at your system, your approach, and see if something needs to be adjusted.
