If I picked up the phone right now and asked you, “How’s your week going?” what would be your answer? Great? Awful? I’m not sure? Imagine driving a car on the interstate and someone asked, “How’s your car running?” To provide a definitive answer, you would quickly scan the dashboard to see what your gauges and dials are reporting in real time, right? Here’s something to consider: Your perception of how well your car is running will actually depend on the gauge to which you pay the most attention. The same principle can be applied to the question of how well things are going during your week.
Regardless of what you do for a living, you’re likely to obsess over a particular “gauge” from time to time, and this will have a huge impact on your overall assessment of “how things are going.” If you are in sales, do you focus on how many prospects are in your pipeline? If you are in H.R., are you constantly on top on who is compliant with hiring procedures? If you are a business owner or an executive in a large organization, do you get wild-eyed when the daily production numbers come out? To get a more accurate reading of how things are actually going for you, it might be time to consider which dashboard dials you’re checking.
I had a recent coaching session on this topic with a new business owner and we had such an amazing break-through, she wanted to share her story. She began by explaining to me she was having a bad week because her revenue was down by 375%. “I get nervous when I see my revenue go down,” she said. “It puts me in a tail spin! Now I need to beat the bushes to fill my pipeline back up!” I listened as she continued to scold herself. “What was the best part of your week?” I asked. She replied, “I helped someone walk pain-free today, and on Thursday, I on-boarded two brand new folks.” At that point, her state of mind began to improve, but within 5 minutes, she’d swung right back into a funk over the lack of revenue, and went on explaining how she just “needs to work harder.”
Digging a little deeper into her situation, she realized she was creating this distress by focusing on only ONE gauge: the revenue “fuel gauge.” It’s the biggest dial on her dashboard, and in her mind, it’s the only dial of any value, and the only gauge worth considering. Her thinking looks something like this:
Low Revenue = Total failure! High Revenue = Total success!
After some coaching, she gradually came to the conclusion that her low revenue was not the result of poor planning or lack of working hard; it was caused by folks taking vacation during the summer months. I asked her how focusing solely on her revenue serves to help her. “It helps me know how successful I am, and if I’m on the right track.” I paused for a minute and asked her a different question, “Why do you do what you do?” She was bewildered and didn’t understand the question, so I clarified it for her, “How do you measure why you do what you do?” She continued struggling with measuring the why, but then something wonderful happened. After another 20 minutes of careful coaching questions, she devised a new dashboard with a few new gauges, and in doing so, completely transformed her mindset.
Her original dashboard looked something like this:
- How much revenue collected?
- How many clients seen?
- How many new referral sources contacted?
- How much spent in expenses?
- How many hours worked?
Then she realized she needed to include dials that represent meaningful progress in her work:
- How many volunteer speaking engagements did I schedule?
- How many thank-you cards did I write?
- How many clients did I help feel better this week?
She then made a huge leap by adding dials that represent meaningful progress with things in her life:
- How many times did I eat vegan?
- How many workouts did I get this week?
- How many times did I read to my son?
- How many times did I reach out to a dear friend?
This was a great realization for her: Revenue was not the reason why she does what she does, nor is it the only way to measure her progress. With this new understanding, she decided to create a new gauge on her dashboard that would get most of her attention, and would have a profound effect by reconnecting her to why she does what she does. Even more significantly—this gauge would keep her on track with who she is striving to become:
- How many lives did I change for the better this week?
This exercise helped to assess the progress of her week by using a whole new criteria. Her dashboard still includes revenue and other measures of outright productivity, but now she’s added several new gauges that hold much more meaning for her.
Sometimes we have the perception we’re getting kicked in the head and failing at our endeavors. In my client’s case, that kind of negativity was being reinforced by her focusing on a perceived low fuel tank. Luckily, she discovered a whole new set of focal points for assessing her progress. It all comes down to where you choose to place value—and you can make those choices for yourself at any point in time. Even if you have a boss who wants you to be mindful of less-than-desirable dials on your dashboard, you can still bring greater meaning and satisfaction into your work (and into your life) by adding your own gauges!
Take some time to reflect and explore why you do what you do for a living. If you want to go even deeper with the question, find a way to discover who you want to become while living. By doing both, I guarantee you’ll have a very different answer the next time someone asks: “So, how’s your week going?”
