Life Metrics
We need metrics for measuring something, typically used in the Organizations on how they are doing. But what are Life Metrics?
I read a long time back that while we were young, we were so caught up in climbing up the ladder to reach the top only to realize when we reached the top that we had leaned on to a wrong wall. But how would we know that we leaned on to a wrong wall before it’s too late in the game and how can we prevent this situation?
I also read that technically, I repeat, technically, a flight is “off course” for more than 99% of the flight. It's only on course during the instants when it's crossing from off-course in one direction to off-course in the other direction but it still reaches its destinations all of the time due to the continual course corrections either manually by the pilot or by the systems when on “auto pilot”.
Just like flights, all of us have
Destinations - we call them our life goals and
our intended path/journey towards these life goals which are decided by our core values as there can be multiple paths to the same destination.
How do we know if our lives are going on the right track? How do we ensure that we are living our lives the way we intend to live?
Out of destination and journey, our main focus should be on the "Journey" as we spend 99.99% of our life in the journeys and a very short time in the destination. So choosing the right path to the goal is as important, if not more, as choosing the goal itself for Happiness is found along the journey, not just at the end of the road. So how we do our journey is a very critical factor on how we live our life.
So we need some Life Metrics just like KPIs - ”Key Performance Indicators”, to check the life goals, the progress towards these goals, and also to see if we are on the right path or if we need any course correction in order to align our journey towards the goals with our core values.
Here is another big advantage of deciding these life goals and Core Values. Without life goals and core values, most of the time, we sweat really, really small/petty stuff ..losing our mental peace/happiness, spoiling our days as well as the days of our loved ones around us.
With the limited time that we have on earth, how much is each of the issues that's bothering us now worth .. in the grand scheme of things? Would it still matter after a month, after a year, after 5-10 years? How would we know? .. Only when we see these issues in the light of our life goals/core values.
That's when I realized that I had to decide my own core values and life goals so I can derive my life metrics from them to check how I was doing in my life.
If we have decided on our life goals and core values, now we have a lens to see things clearly and see how each issue in our life affects our life goals/core values. If it doesn't, it's a small thing with no impact on the big picture of our life and hence we don't have to get frustrated over these petty things.
I have seen a lot of guys including me giving more importance to the outsiders that hardly matter in our life while we hurt our close family members, the people we love the most. This is the problem when our priorities are not clear to us and deciding our goals and core values helps us get the clarity we need.
Action items:
So we have three action items here.
Action Item 1: Decide life goals
These are the destinations that we want to reach.
One word of caution here. Let’s not make shallow goals here. Lots of us take making money as the end goal. Money in itself serves no purpose. It serves the purpose only when it is used for a specific end goal. So money is ONLY a means to an end and we should think of the real end goals here.
Action Item 2: Decide our core values
This is how we want to reach our destinations and it affects our journey towards those destinations.
For example, reaching a certain position in an Organization or in the political career can be a life goal while doing it legally and ethically can be our core value.
Any issue that doesn't affect these core values/life goals is truly a trivial issue and is not worth our time.
Action Item 3: Need to review our life goals/core values once in a while.
a) Do You remember that we were talking about leaning on to the wrong wall? How do we know that we leaned on to the wrong wall unless we check our life goals once in a while?
Today, with our current maturity levels and knowledge, we choose one thing as our goal. But tomorrow, with our new learning/new knowledge/new experiences in life and higher maturity levels, we might change our belief system totally and decide on something that's exactly opposite to the original goal.
Initially I chose a big home (4500 sft) as one of my destinations and later I realized that I actually needed a small home (500 sft) with a lot of outdoor area filled with activities. Earlier my goal was living in a big home but now I use the home for food, bath,and sleep while I love living mostly outdoors in the yard/garden/nature with my three babies (Pets). This is an example of how our goals can change over time.
b) Also, we need to make sure that the way we are pursuing our goals aligns with our core values.
I think most of us are racing against time in pursuing our goals (whether we set it for ourselves or we follow the general society goals of bigger homes, costly cars, or huge bank balance) that we generally do not find time to stop and look at these things leisurely and objectively.
This is where setting up Life Metrics and reviewing them once or twice a year helps us.
My life metrics:
I am sharing here my Life Metrics (a combination of my life Goals and Core Values) I have set for myself in order to
Review the life goals to see if they are still valid now
Review the progress made towards my goals
Check if I am on the right course in the journey towards my goals (are my core values followed?)
Lastly, decide the things I should care about so I don't sweat about small stuff that hardly counts in the big picture of my life.
Here they are. Please note that some of these metrics are intangible (qualitative rather than quantitative).
Health – Physical, mental, relationships, spiritual, and financial - with focus, not on long life, but on quality of life
Fitness – Walk/Run/Swim/Climb/Trekking
Look my best and enjoy life.
Balanced life - emotional equilibrium state – Remember everything in life comes in dual only. Day-Night, Happiness-Sadness, excitement-boredom, high-low, Hot-Cold, top-bottom. There is no pleasure without pain, profit without loss, and up without down. One has no meaning without the other. It's just how life is. If we understand this, we should NEVER worry about Lows/loss in life.
Pain/bad times as a good thing/tool to become a better person. Start liking it.
Taking full responsibility for everything that happens in my life – Focus on actions, not on blame games or complaining.
Backpacking places/countries.
Spending time in nature with my kids and pets.
Learning new languages (starting with Spanish) and new skills (start with cooking).
Being a vegetarian.
Being grateful.
To be there for my kids when they need me.
Mindful every minute, the little time I have on this earth and focus more on how to make it my best.
Conclusion:
Why Life Metrics?
“What is not defined cannot be measured. What is not measured cannot be improved. What is not improved, is always degraded” - William Thomson Kelvin.
What I have done in this regard helped me have clear priorities, a right vision for my life, left my days more pleasant/purposeful/meaningful and me as a happy person.
I check on how my life is going at least twice a year .. once on my birthday and once on New Year eve.
We all must have heard that it's not what happens to us in our life that defines us but it’s how we deal with it.
I strongly believe in "Out of sight .. out of mind". I need a reminder once in a while, as I slowly deviate from my decisions/thoughts/goals over a period of time, in order to make “course corrections” as needed. So I wrote these things in order to revisit them once in a while. I am sharing it with my friends to see if it helps anyone that’s traveling in the same boat as I was.
As always, I welcome your comments and constructive criticism on this blog.