Measuring Your Performance, Not You

The book that most changed my life is ‘The Compound Effect’ by Darren Hardy. It was the first book where I actually implemented something from it. Darren writes: “Track every action that relates to the area of your life you want to improve.”

I don’t remember what specifically I started tracking, but what I do know is it ignited what has become the most important part of my self improvement. And in helping thousands of people implement their version of daily performance tracking, I’ve noticed a common pattern that is causing people to not be consistent with it.

Here’s the nuance: You’re measuring your performance, not you.

What’s the difference? When you’re measuring your performance, you are observing what happened. You can objectively look at the facts without being as caught up in what it means about your character, discipline, or commitment. 

Tracking works because it gives you an awareness for things you either didn’t see or were unwilling to allow yourself to see. And with that feedback you can diagnose the factors that go into poor performance, analyze the way you’re impacted by your conditions, and use all of that insight to improve efforts moving forward.

Taking a 3rd party lens by making it about your performance creates the space you need to be more honest about how things went.

And that’s because when you’re measuring yourself, it gets personal. It’s not about what happened, it’s about you. You didn’t get in the gym like you said you would. You had more dessert than you should have. You had an outburst on a loved one. 

You are responsible for the poor choice or negative result, and that clicks on a cycle of guilt, shame, and discouragement. Then as an act of self-preservation, your mind rationalizes the behavior and creates a biased representation of the story that protects you in the short-term but doesn’t help you in the long-run.

That’s why at the beginning of my personal performance tracking routine, I ask myself a very important question to prime the experience: Am I tracking my performance today with curiosity and without judgment?

For me, it’s a reminder of the mindset I need to bring into my review. If my intention is genuinely to improve, then I need to be more critical of my performance. But that isn’t effective unless your self-image is removed from the situation, and your reflection can be pure.

If you want to see my Self Improvement Scorecard in action, watch this video where I show you how I hold myself accountable to improving every area of my life.

‍