Keeping Score!

"Keeping score doesn't guarantee that you're counting the right things."

-Doug Smith-High Performance Leadership

This was not exactly what I had in mind to write about today,however once I read it I realized just how strongly it resonated with me.My original thoughts for today were swirling around a sense of calm that I was feeling.Somehow,out of the turmoil and turbulence I have been experiencing lately, I found myself at ease with where I am and what I want to do next, meaning for the rest of today.Upon reading Doug's daily message I understood that my sense of calm was a direct by product of my "counting" or accounting as it might be. 

I make lists. I make schedules. I use calendars. I stick post it notes up as reminders. I build systems. I make checklists. I make to do lists.I make piles and then categorize the piles and then further dissect the piles into even smaller more manageable piles.

For me, all of these checks and balances bring order to chaos.

It's not just busy work. It's not as some would say a waste of time. Organizing all of this insures that stones are not left unturned,I's are dotted and T's are crossed.

It's not about keeping score. Without a sense of what I want to accomplish,I can not gauge my success. When heaped upon me as one enormous pile, it is difficult for me to dis way the feelings  of hopelessness.It all seems overwhelming.

When confronted with what may seem insurmountable the only rational thing for me to do is to find a starting point and begin the tedious task of working through all of it.

Have you ever had a gold chain necklace that was tied up in a knot? The finer the necklace the tighter the knot. It takes pain staking steadiness and calm to undo the ball of metal.Eventually, given enough time and patience, you can restore that twisted mess into a thing of beauty once again.

I need road maps. I need targets. I need mile markers and road signs.

In the gym, I always have a schedule of apparatus and exercises.I count reps and sets. I measure myself incrementally by adding weight. I have a starting point and an ending point. The next time I do that same exercise, I start 1 plate up from where I started the last time,increasing to a new end weight.

It's not about score. It's all about charting progress.

I never wanted to be an accountant. Personally nothing could interest me less.However, I do understand the importance of the accounting.

If I want to earn $100,000 and I make a 5% commission, I must sell $2,000,000 dollars worth of product. I have never made a $2,000,000 sales. But I can assure you I have made many thousands of $1,000 sales.If I make 8 $1000 sales 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year.....do the math!

The same is true for my quality of life. What does it mean to have led a good life. Adding up all of the good days....one at a time, until the body of work is an accumulation of good days.

It's all in the counting!

Now it's time to go make today count!

Shabbat Shalom!