You’ve Got To Measure It

It’s remarkable how gratifying and addictive a jarful of marbles can be. I use them to “score” myself to ingrain daily habits.

Adopting constructive new behaviors is hard. No matter how beneficial they are for us or how determined we are to make them work, we will fall short and probably give up on them, unless we measure them.

There’s a famous quote attributed to Peter Drucker, the legendary management guru… “what gets measured gets managed.” It’s as true in our personal endeavors as it is in managing a business. A version of this concept that I love is, “measure what matters.”

I use my jars of marbles to “measure what matters.” Here’s an example – it’s critical that we reach more people with the good work that we do at MidStrong, so I set a goal of directly communicating with at least five new people every day. For every one of those touches, I move a marble from the big full jar to the little empty one. The jars are front and center on my desk – impossible to ignore. The tinkle of each marble dropping into that jar gives me a little thrill. Filling that little jar is immensely gratifying. Likewise, all the while that jar sits empty, it bores a hole in my conscience, which motivates me to get it done early.

Then, I use a monthly calendar and check off each day that I’ve “moved my marbles”. At the end of each month, I’ve got a scorecard that shows my progress and consistency. Every check on that calendar is gratifying and motivating. And every date that’s missing a check glares back at me and motivates me to be more consistent.

We’ve used similar tracking calendars in the past for various MidStrong challenges, like last year’s wildly successful 6X30 June Challenge. Dozens of MidStrongers consistently got six workouts per week of at least 30 minutes for that entire month. We are doing this challenge again in a couple of months, so stay tuned.

Whether it’s marbles or calendars, using some visual and obvious method to score ourselves is a proven method to measure what matters. How could you use a similar approach to inspire consistency and make progress toward your fitness goals?

At MidStrong, we’re making lives awesome. Sure, we can help you burn fat and lose weight. But, what we truly strive for is to guide and inspire you to move steadily closer to becoming the remarkable person you are meant to be.

You can do this. Don’t settle. Join us.

Stronger than our excuses.