I have never been good at using data to make choices. My psycho brain is always telling me to DO MORE without taking a moment to stop and measure my progress to make sure what I am doing is working.

With that said, at the beginning of this year, my business coach and I made it a point to set metrics for my portfolio of companies so that we can measure our progress each month and make sure my work was moving me in the direction I want to go.

We set three standards for each company…

• Gold

• Silver

• Bronze

Each month, I would track my progress and rate the month depending on what bucket of results I landed in.

It was a phenomenal exercise and I am so thrilled because the act of constantly evaluating what I’m aiming for has been within itself an exercise in clarity.

At the end of the year, as I am doing final tallies on my goals, it’s apparent that in most cases I came up just short. But the act of constantly evaluating myself against the desired benchmark still got me further than I would be if I hadn’t.

It’s easy to make decisions when you have a north star to point at.

“Is this decision going to get me closer to, or further from, my ultimate goal?”

Over the course of the next two weeks, I’ve been given the assignment of setting my goals and my benchmarks for 2021. I need time to reflect, to think, to strategize, to run numbers, and ultimately to set an aim.

I will share these exercises with you as I brainstorm and meditate.