The work week is over. Monday to Friday, maybe even Saturday crept onto your schedule. You settle in on the couch or your favorite chair after a long day and lean back. As you reflect on your week, there are three imaginary boxes you have the option to check off: you won, you lost, or you don’t know.
How do you know if you’re winning? If you’re an athlete in the middle of a game, all you have to do is look up at the scoreboard to find the answer. The same should apply to our daily lives. Are you hitting your goals? How do you know whether you are ahead or behind? Like in sports, you wouldn’t want to wait until the game is over to look at the score. You want to know every step of the way so that you can adjust your plays – even your players – before the game is over.
Your ambition is your opponent. The objective? Smash it.
So what should your scorecard consist of? Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, you work in sales, or you own your own business, we’re all living toward something. Our goals, however, might look vastly different. See my post about setting goals here. Once you’ve identified your objective, find something that you can use to measure whether you are getting closer to your goal or falling further away.
Once you’ve established your scorecard, make it easy to follow. Here are three action items you can start TODAY to begin measuring where you’re at in the game.
- Make it visible. Right there on the field. In big numbers. So it’s inexcusably obvious. Post it on your desk at work, on the fridge, or wherever you find yourself staring throughout your day. If you want to know at a moment’s notice what your score is, it should be somewhere you can find it!
- Make it clear. If someone you’ve never met – who has no idea what you do or what your goal is – asks if you’re winning, you should have no problem answering them. If your goal is 100 sales and you have 70, I still can’t tell if you’re winning or losing. If you say your goal is 100 sales by the end of the week and it’s only Tuesday, then I have a pretty good idea that you’re going to win this one.
- Check in daily. Make sure that you’re checking in on how you’re doing. Update your goals daily if possible. If you score a touchdown, the scoreboard updates immediately! (Even if the play is in question.) To keep momentum, you have to keep watching your score move! Make this a daily habit to check your score!
Don’t just hit your goal. Annihilate it. If you look at your goal like it’s the destination, you’re only going to work as hard as you think it takes to get there. Then when you do, you quit working! Look at your goal as your biggest rival. You don’t want to just come out even, you want to pass it with such a force that no one even saw you coming! Your ambition is your opponent. The objective? Smash it!
Whatever role you’re in, find your scorecard and keep it front and center. Know what you’re aiming for. And smash your goals.
What’s on your scorecard? Are you winning today?
– Coach Becca