Measure your success differently!
I recently finished an amazing month in my business. My amazing team and I knocked it out of the park. But, there was one order that went a little awry. So, as I was reflecting on that month, my mind went straight to that one order, ignoring everything else.
As high achievers, we set our goals and try to crush them on a regular basis. But how often do we stop and celebrate our wins? Shouldn’t that be the whole point?
We should measure how far we’ve come and how much we’ve accomplished!
Today’s podcast episode of the Magnetic Marketing and Mindset Show, is all about finding a better way to measure your success that no one is talking about.
This episode covers:
- The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success” by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
- How looking back at what you’ve achieved is a more accurate measure of how far you’ve come
- The $1.80 Strategy
- Conscious Competence Learning Model
- My bonus quick tip called “trinity”
Let’s all remember to pause and look back at all we’ve accomplished so far!
Join me for this episode and learn more about the better way to measure your success that no one is talking about.
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A Better Way To Measure Your Success That No One Is Talking About
I am here to talk to you about a better way to measure your success. I was just finishing an amazing month in my business. It was one of our best months ever. The second to our November month, which was Black Friday and it was insane. We knocked it out of the park. My team is amazing. I woke up on the first of the month and reflecting back. I had one customer order that went a little awry. I woke up thinking about that one order that didn’t go as planned. Out of all of the business that we did, I was focused on the one thing that didn’t go right.
I remember thinking it’s so wild how our brain focuses on the things that did not happen. It’s what’s called negativity bias. Our brain is wired to figure out what’s wrong instead of celebrating what’s right, I’ve been reading a book and it’s called The Gap and The Gain. It’s by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. You may have heard me talk about the book, Who Not How, in a previous episode. I love these books. The Gap and The Gain is my jam because it talks about how to get out of a scarcity mindset and get into an abundant mindset.
If you are reading this, odds are you are a high-achiever, striver, and someone who sets goals and tries to crush them on a regular basis. Sometimes for people like us, it’s hard to stop and celebrate our wins. The whole point is how far we’ve come and how much we’ve accomplished. I want to talk to you about a couple of exercises you can do to rethink how much you’ve accomplished, but first I want to talk to you about goal setting in the future, how important it is, and how it can be misleading.
The way that the authors describe this ideal scenario of the future like when we set our ideal goal of exactly what we’d want things to look like in the future, there’s a problem with the ideal because the ideal is not real. It’s an illusion. It’s a spot in the future to move towards, but it’s not a very specific destination. For any of you who’ve hit the goal that you want, you’re automatically thinking about the next goal. The goal isn’t the end destination, it’s like a stop along the way.
They describe the ideal as a horizon. Imagine with me, you’re looking out on the ocean and you see where the sun meets the water. That’s the line of the horizon. The horizon isn’t an actual spot, it’s a visual cue for you to measure the space in the future. A more accurate measure is to turn around and look behind you at how far you’ve come. That’s what I want to talk to you about.
One of the exercises in the book is to look back ten years and write down all of the things you’ve accomplished in the past ten years. I did this and it was very fun because several years ago, I had three little kids. I was a stay-at-home mom and I was doing a ton of great stuff. I was volunteering. I was the head of the parents’ association. I was doing a lot of fundraising. I was the Girl Scout troop leader. I was around for so much of the kid stuff. I was playing an important role as a young mom.
I had stopped working in marketing and public relations. I was in between. I had no career. I had no idea what and if I would do anything next. I knew I wanted to do something, but I had no idea what it would be. In the past several years, I became a personal trainer and wellness coach. I taught at some of the top gems here in Manhattan. I became a run coach and an ambassador for Lululemon. I ran their run club. I ran two marathons. I don’t even know how many half-marathons and races in Central Park. I started a wellness business. I started a Facebook group for my friends that have now grown to over 5,000 people. I have a weekly email that goes out with wellness news. I am now making more in my online wellness business than I ever would’ve imagined making in my personal training or wellness business.
None of that had transpired in the past several years. Am I going to focus on that or am I going to focus on the one order that didn’t go through at the end of the month? This is an amazing practice. I’d love it if you reached out to me on social media and told me what you discovered about yourself that you have done in the last several years that you forgot about.
My husband and I have traveled the world. We’ve had these amazing memories with our families. It’s been extraordinary what we’ve been able to do in the past several years. I hope you can read the smile on my face because it is such a great exercise. Focus on the gains. The way you measure your success is by looking behind you, not at what you did or did not achieve most recently. What’s in front of you is merely your horizon. Of course, you’re going to go to work and set your goals. I’m saying when you measure your success, measure your success by how far behind you go.
Measure success by looking behind you, not at what you did or did not achieve. Click To TweetThis was interesting. The problem is how you measure. I’m going to read this from The Gap and The Gain. “Do you find that no matter how much success you have, you’re perpetually dissatisfied with your progress? Does it feel like you’re still far from achieving your biggest goals? The problem is not in the quantity or quality of your success and achievements. The problem is how you measure.”
This was fun. They talk about the stages of The Conscious Confidence Learning Model. I found this fascinating. Any of you moms that are out there reading, you’ll know when you potty trained your kids, this will sound super familiar, or learn to ride a bike, any of those like skills that now you’re like, “I know how to do that. I don’t have to think about it anymore.” That’s what happens to us over and over again. It’s why we forget how much we’ve learned how to do.
The first step in any conscious learning model is called Unconscious Incompetency. You don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t even know that would be a skill. You don’t know that potty training is even a thing. Unconscious Incompetency is blissful ignorance. You have no idea then one day you figure out that this is a skill you need to learn, but you still know you don’t know how to do it. It’s called Conscious Incompetency.
Now, you know that you need to learn it, but you know you don’t know how to do it so you start to build the skill. As you’re building the skill and you learn it, that becomes conscious competency. You’re learning it and you’re proud of yourself. If any of you have learned a new skill, you know this is a great skill to learn. You’ve learned your new thing. You consciously learn and it gets exciting. You then build it in and it becomes a habit, and it becomes part of who you are. You move on to the next goal which becomes unconscious competency. You’re not even giving yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished because your brain is like, “We already know how to do that,” and moves on to the next thing.
What I’m asking you to do is stop and acknowledge all of your unconscious competencies. There are many. You are doing an amazing job. You’ve made it this far. You’ve made it through so many things. You’ve learned how to navigate so many difficult challenges. You’ve accomplished so many great things. I want you to stop and think about those things and keep this list.
One of my favorite tips that they say in the book, and I do this every day with my girlfriend, Emily, maybe may be reading this, we have something that we call the Daily Trinity. We leave each other a message each day on Voxer. We tell each other three things that we’ve done that we’re proud of. We also say three things we’re grateful for and three things that we desire. We put our goals out there or the things that we’re wishing for.
Celebrating and writing down your three wins each day locks in your memory. If you write them down, you can go back and look. If you started now and wrote three wins at the end of every day that you did that you were proud of, by the end of the year, you could look back on all of the amazing things you accomplished this year. Wouldn’t that be better than focusing on the one thing that you didn’t?
I hope this was helpful. Please go into the podcast, if you are finding this content helpful and useful. I try to do it in little bite-sized pieces so that you can take this knowledge, wisdom, tips, and ideas on the run. Put them into your life, make them work for you, make your business work a little bit better, and make you feel a little bit more congruent and excited about what you’re doing. When you’re excited and feel good, that is a magnet for possibility and opportunity. Go out there. Be a positive magnet. Celebrate your wins. I believe in you. You’re amazing. I hope you have an amazing day. See you next time.
