Track Yo' Shit: What Gets Measured, Gets Managed
If I read one more blogpost about SMART goals, I’m going to puke. For those who aren’t up to speed, SMART is a clever acronym that reminds you how all good goals should be:
Sexy Manic Acidic Reptilian Titillating
Don't quote me on that, one of those might not be quite right. However, there is an often overlooked key step that you must do before setting an improvement goal and it will act like a springboard toward success in achieving your target. Don’t make the mistake of setting a goal before putting conscious thought into what you want your results to be, what you will measure, and how you will measure it. It’s critical to choose a measurement that is directly linked to the specific outcome you are trying to achieve.
Once you’ve decide what to track, spend two weeks simply measuring and recording this data consistently. Use this time to confirm whether you chose something that is easy to measure and to refine your ability to track the data.
Make the act of recording the data an important ritual. There are many different ways to do this (buy a fancy-ass notebook and use it exclusively for this purpose, post the data in a high-traffic area in your house, tattoo a backwards reminder on your chest so you can read it in the mirror, etc.) and which you choose doesn't particularly matter. What matters is developing the habit of recording the data and teaching your subconscious mind that it is important.
Too many people set either too large of an improvement goal and end up being discouraged or set too modest of a goal only to achieve it quickly and then lose momentum. You need to understand what you are measuring at a deep level before you can set a meaningful goal. Two people can pursue the exact same goal by virtually identical means and have vastly different results if they measure their success in different ways. What you choose to measure and how you choose to measure it is a critical factor in increasing your chances of success.
What might surprise you is that the simple act of measuring something results in its immediate improvement. This is due to a variety of factors but the most meaningful one is that consistently observing something or thinking about it sends a strong message to your subconscious that it is important. Before you run screaming in fear that we are going down a meta-physical/woo-woo path, let me try to convince you that the power of your subconscious mind is the polar opposite of new age bullshit.
Most people would agree that Thomas Edison had his shit together (a shockingly large proportion of people also think he was one of the Founding Fathers but that’s beside the point). Dude literally invented light bulbs (or creatively stole and upgraded the idea from Tesla), fluoroscopy, and motion picture cameras among other things and died with nearly 1,100 patents to his name. He also suggested you “never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious”. Edison understood that your subconscious is constantly churning, day or night, and he recognized this as a great opportunity to literally solve problems while you sleep.
Any fellow crossword fan is familiar with the phenomenon of plugging away at a puzzle until you reach a stopping point, only to pick it up a day or two later and immediately fill in the rest of the grid. It’s gratifying and also slightly creepy to know that my subconscious has been churning away on the clues that originally gave me pause.
Have you ever heard of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon? No? Do you hate it when people ask and then answer their own questions? Me too. Another thing I know we have in common is that we’ve both “discovered” a brand new band only to overhear them on the radio three times in the next week. Or we’ve both bought a new car partially because it’s so much more distinctive than most of what we see on the road and then we see two of them on the drive home, one in the exact same color! The truth is that this band and this car were always just as present in our lives but we simply didn’t notice them because our subconscious didn’t consider them to be interesting or important. By directing your focus on something, no matter what it is, your subconscious will get the message that it matters.
The bottom line is that measuring something leads to increased awareness, which leads to deeper understanding. To eradicate your DadBod, you need to find a way to measure it and become keenly aware of these measurements so that you can tackle the meatier project of understanding how it developed in the first place and precisely how you are going to stomp it into submission.
There are only two acceptable reasons for not tracking your shit:
#1. You have a photographic memory and can instantly recall the weather for any day in the past ten years upon request.
#2. You secretly worship your DadBod and have no intent whatsoever to get rid of it.