Last week I talked about how you will never be able to measure up, so try to measure IN. You can read all about Measuring IN here. This week is all about what Measuring IN is not…
Measuring IN is not giving up.
You may think, “great! I can measure IN and never worry about what’s going on around me.” Nope. We have to live and function in the world. And you want to get better. I get that. I’m suggesting we are going about improvement all wrong. Instead of looking outside yourself and measuring against other people, turn in and start there.
Measuring IN is not ignoring the world we live in.
You can’t throw your hands up in the air and just give up. Challenging yourself and measuring yourself is an important aspect to improvement. “If you don’t measure it, it doesn’t exist” is a quote I heard from Brene Brown in one of her Ted Talks. But we immediately look to measure our own success and happiness against anyone outside of ourselves. So I’m not saying never measure yourself. If you are hitting your personal benchmarks and showing improvement over time, then you ARE getting better and becoming more successful.
We minimize our success when we look at other who may have been at their craft or skill for WAY longer than us, and say “see, I’m not there yet, so I’m a failure. I don’t measure up.” I have heard a number of times, that we cannot compare our starting point (or middle point) to someone else’s end point. You have no idea how long that person has been working on their career, fitness, craft, skill, etc.
Measuring IN is not complacency.
Taking a look at your internal environment can often be scarier than looking at what’s going on around you. Because we don’t want to measure In, we distract ourselves with drama, with work, with food, TV, family and friends, our responsibilities, our hustle. And then we wonder why we are not happy. Pausing to take a look at our internal environment can help calm the hustle of life.
How do you measureIN? I would love to hear about it. Make sure you use the hash tag and let me know how you #MeasureIN.
