Creating Metrics That Allow You to Win in Life and Work

Katherine Lieber

Jul 21, 20224 min read

What you reward, expands.

Any behaviors that get rewarded in your life, become repeated, habits, embedded. Truth is, your brain loves moving toward what it perceives as positive. Whether it's the pleasure of coffee in the morning, your big writing session or product creation for the day, or signing on a new client to your group coaching program, if you perceive this things as a big win, ka-ching! Your brain gets that pleasure hit, and you seek out new opportunities to do it again.

But what happens when there aren't any metrics at all? That vagueness can be one of the key reasons you aren't succeeding as much as you could be. If you've been dragging your heels, avoiding, or find that weeks have gone by and you haven't yet touched that task, absence of reward can be a key factor.

Here's how to set it up so that you create WINS for yourself, even on tasks you "don't like" to do.

Identify Why You're Not Giving Yourself The Win

Could it be... perfectionism? Perfectionists usually have a list of win criteria as long as their arm, and, they constantly shift the finish line. So even if you do finish your blog post, the perfectionist in you says, "Yes, but you should also add this... or that... to make it REALLY stand out." By doing that, you create absolutely NO reward for yourself. In fact, you create "toxic reward", i.e., your only reward is the perfectionist in you telling you how much better it could have been if you'd really applied yourself. Ugh!
Do you have no real definition of what the win is? Vague ideas like "I'm going to email my list today" give you no real metrics to assess whether you succeeded or not, or at least, not enough to really give you that success hit. Ask defining questions that can lead to measurable results, for example: How many words? What general content? How many affiliate or other links to include? How to create conversational, inclusive tone?
Are you not giving yourself the inner leadership you need to get through your fears on the item? Often, what's happening is that an underlying survival strategy ("if I never finish my blog post, I never fail!") is blocking you from moving forward. In essence, what's being rewarded is absence of activity. You never finish the blog post and thus you "stay safe".

Try These 4 Ways To Create Wins By Using Success Metrics

Reward finishing. At its most basic, if it's something you've been putting off, reward yourself for just finishing it! Turn down that Perfectionist in you and celebrate that YOU DID IT. Finishing is better than never finishing. Writing is better than never writing. Emailing is better than never emailing. Now you have the raw material to move forward, learn, and grow. Set a metric on finishing x# of whatever it is per day, and track it each day. Use Google Sheets, Excel, or if you feel adventurous, something like Beeminder.
Reward tackling the most difficult parts first. Prioritize tackling what's most difficult on the task, and REWARD yourself for doing so. Ask questions like this: What's the worst part of this task? What's the scariest part for me? What's the hardest, most wretched bit that you don't want to even look at? Define it (write it out on paper, by hand, which activates different brain areas than typing on screen). Deliberately do that part first, and reward your willingness to tackle the tough stuff. Doing this regularly is a huge success amplifier in your life.
Create a rubric. Create a written or printed rubric against which your efforts can be measured. Fill it out and keep track of how you did. Define what measurements you have to fulfill to get your reward. Number of words, time it took, how close the item came to your initial vision. Once you have these in place, this enables you to work consistently, knowing your roadmap and being able to see past performance in solid numbers -- not swinging around on the trapeze without a net wondering how you did.
Lead yourself well. Bake strong inner leadership into everything you do. What protection do you need against past punishments that still rattle around as artifacts of childhood survival? What kind of punishments did you experience, and how might this be blocking your efforts? (For example, old punishment as a kid for "being too big for your britches" driving you to "stay safe" by fading into the background, when you really want to get that blog post out!) Make getting yourself through this a metric in itself. How well did you lead yourself? How do you rate your inner leader's compassion, guidance, ability to help you through the difficult parts? When you reward your inner leader, that in itself is enough to motivate him or her to continue getting you through the tough spots, until they aren't tough spots any more.

Create your own set of daily metrics, including "soft metrics" of creating safety, satisfaction, or minimizing perfectionism. Your ability to create reward and achievement will grow the more you do this, and as that does, so will your success in all you wish to do.

What reward metrics will you create and track and WIN at, starting today?

Keep Growing,