#276: The benefits of measuring success backwards
Don't look at where you want to be, check first on where you were
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Jordan Peterson, one of today's most influential thought leaders, is credited with this quote:
"Don't compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday."
I have used this quote often in my writing and speaking events. As easy as it is to say, many of us still want to look at where others are and what others have to gauge their Happiness.
I would like to challenge you to take Mr. Peterson's quote further. Let's not look at yesterday; let's look at where we were ten years ago! What have you accomplished since then?
Think about it! Over the past decade, you may have financed your kid's college, paid off your house, opened a new business, and hit that first million in sales! You could have expanded your business and your investment portfolio, gotten married, and had a few children. Heck, you could have retired a few years earlier than you planned.
Stop there for a moment and ask yourself; what are you chasing? Then, scratching that goal off the list and on to the next, never taking a breath to acknowledge the accomplishment. Maybe we can blame our founding Fathers for this constant rush.
Whether in our business or personal lives, we all pursue Happiness. It's in our Declaration of Independence; it is part of our DNA as an American!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Be careful when you set your goals! Our goal to be happy can never be met if we can always be happier. Likewise, our goal of being healthy cannot be met if we can be healthier. So again, are you happier than you were yesterday or a decade ago? We speak a lot about vision, which is where we want to be, but measure how far you've come instead of how far you have yet to go.
Apply this concept in business
Applying this philosophy in your business is paramount to continuous improvement. Don't set goals, set growth paths. If you achieve your goals, it is the same as being happy. Do you stop? No, there is always room for improvement.
When you report on your path, continue reinforcing your team's progress. Where was the team 12 months ago? Don't focus on how far they have to go; get their minds in a positive frame by celebrating their successes.
What I like most about this entire concept is that it removes negative mindsets. You can't focus on the negatives when continuously looking at your successes. A negative attitude can be cancer in an organization. So get your team to start measuring and reporting their successes.
Looking backward for measurement is written extensively in the book The Gap and The Gain - The High Achiever's Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success By Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
How the brain works
How our brain processes things and mentally frames our experiences, affects how our bodies react. It sounds hard to believe, but researchers have proven that the mind/body connection existed when they did some interesting experiments relating to exercise and food.
One of the food experiments explored how a group of people physically responded to drinking "healthy" milkshakes" vs. "high-fat" milkshakes. The participants were told that the milkshake they were given to drink was either 620 calories, or 120. But all of the milkshakes were, in fact, 380 calories. The researchers measured the participants' blood levels afterward for levels of the gut peptide ghrelin, which tells us when we need to eat. When we have a high level of ghrelin in our blood, we feel hungry. Once we've eaten, the level drops, and we feel complete. The participants who believed they'd drunk a high-fat milkshake had less ghrelin in their blood, and they felt full. The participants who thought they'd had a low-cal shake had higher levels of ghrelin in their blood and did not feel full. But the milkshakes were precisely the same – meaning that what the participants believed about what they were ingesting affected their digestive processes.
Scientists have seen the same type of results with exercise.
A number of women who worked cleaning hotel rooms were split into two groups. One group was told in detail how and why the work they were doing was a high-quality exercise that was very beneficial for them, and the other group wasn’t told anything about their work. After four weeks, the group that believed they were engaging in quality exercise showed measurable improvements in blood pressure, BMI, and weight.
Again, apply this to your business
Your sales team aims to go from $100,000 in sales to $200,000 this quarter. With 3-weeks to go, they are $175,000. If you continuously reinforce that they are short of the goal, they only hear the negatives. They are short by 25%, they are behind in reaching their goal, or they are only 75% there.
Instead, you could be focusing on how far they have come. They are $75,000 ahead of last quarter, have improved by 75%, and still have time to go!
A macro way to look at how this affects behavior:
When we talk about a recessionary economy, we look at the negative growth for one quarter in a multi-trillion dollar economy. The economy could be down less than 1% from the previous quarter. If that is all we read about, the natural reaction is for people to slow down their spending. That lower spending deepens the recession and makes the worsening recession a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, I know, it is a rah-rah speech; however, if you only hear negatives, that's where you will end up. Taking a snapshot of the gap between where you want to be and where you are is necessary. We still need to run the business. But spending more time looking at how far you have advanced significantly impacts your team.
Changing mindset is not easy work today, but it will lead to a better tomorrow. So, if you are having trouble with that, connect with us at the Kole Performance Group! We can fill those gaps with positivity!
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