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Twenty-three Ways to Measure Your Goal
We instinctively know we should measure our goals, but most of us don’t.
Millions of people wearing Fitbits can tell you the number of fictional floors
they’ve climbed or that they just received the badge for walking the equivalent
of the entire continent of South America. If you were to ask them how they’re

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of the entire continent of South America. If you were to ask them how they’re
measuring their life goals, though, you would be met with a blank stare.
It sounds difficult or complicated or scientific, but if you’ve made it this far
in the book, you’ve already got at least one measurement. You’ve read 75
percent. You’re already rare and you’ve already got a measurement of pages. If
you’ve been doing some or all of the actions, you’ve already got a list of those
piling up, too.
What if you want to measure something that’s more specific to your goal?
What if you want to use data to tear down the phantom of perfectionism that
ruins most of your goals?
Here are twenty-three things you can keep track of:
1. Time invested
How many hours during the next 30 days will you invest in your
goal? If you spend 15 minutes a day for 30 days, that adds up to 7.5
hours. That might not seem like a lot, but when was the last time you took
almost a whole workday to work on something you care about?
2. Money earned
If you’ve got a business goal, it’s easy to measure revenue you’ve
generated during the thirty days.
3. Products sold
Most forms of measurement can be broken down into multiple bits of
information. If you’re selling a product, it’s easy to measure both the
money earned and the number of units you sold.
4. Pounds lost
Is there an easier form of measurement than a scale when you’re
trying to lose weight?
5. Inches
This might be slightly more difficult than tracking your pounds, but
knowing how many inches you dropped can also be helpful.
6. Garbage bags full of stuff
A friend of mine who wanted to declutter her house counted the

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A friend of mine who wanted to declutter her house counted the
individual items she got rid of but also the number of garbage bags of
stuff she donated.
7. Books sold
You never know you own too many books until you have to move
and realize a book is just a brick with words. Lots of people who focus on
decluttering count the number of books they sell back to the used-book
store in their town.
8. Pages or words written
Speaking of books, if you want to write one, counting pages written
can be a great thing to measure.
9. Miles run
I’ll do about a thousand miles this year. How do I know? Because the
Nike app tracks it all for me. I’m almost at Purple Level, a completely
useless but oddly satisfying digital reward. I’m already judging those lazy
Blue Level losers I left in my dust.
10. Steps
There are lots of great devices on the market right now that will give
you this information from the convenience of your own wrist.
11. E-mail subscribers
If you’re building any sort of online business, the number of people
you have on your e-mail list will be critical.
12. Followers on a social media platform
Save for Snapchat, every social media platform makes it incredibly
easy to instantly know how many followers you have.
13. Meals made
Increasing your exercise while ignoring what you eat is stupid. One of
the keys to healthy living is meal planning. You could count the number
of meals you made each week at home instead of going out.

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of meals you made each week at home instead of going out.
14. Money saved
You know that number in your savings account? That’s a form of
measurement.
15. Debt paid off
The thinness of your credit card statement is a form of measurement.
If it’s being mailed to you with a binder clip and the mailman is out of
breath when he delivers it, see if you can work your way down to a single
staple.
16. Dates with a spouse
Jenny and I go out five times a week and spend a lot of time holding
hands while watching the sunset from two different claw-footed bathtubs
in a field. Not really, I just feel a bunch of shame whenever someone tells
me how perfect he is at dating his spouse. Time spent with your spouse is
time well invested. Keeping track of the number of dates you go on can
be great.
17. Prospects contacted
Maybe your business isn’t ready to receive sales yet or you’re still in
the early stages of development. No problem, just keep track of the
number of prospects you contacted.
18. Hours slept
Sleep is becoming a hot topic as more people realize it’s a key to high
performance. (How did this take us so long to realize?) Track it simply
with an alarm clock or get more specific with a wearable device.
19. Thank-you notes mailed
Maybe you’re working on gratefulness. How many thank-you cards
did you send out this month?
20. New contacts
We hate the word “networking,” but maybe part of your goal is to

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We hate the word “networking,” but maybe part of your goal is to
expand your network, not just your social media reach. How many people
did you meet this month?
21. Bad food avoided
I think it can be equally interesting to track what you didn’t do. If you
skipped three pieces of pizza and four sodas, write that down. You’ll
have fun adding up all the calories you didn’t eat this month in one
imaginary pile, like a Jabba the Hutt made of junk food. Spaceballs
reference.
22. Books read
This is a fairly common goal and one that’s ridiculously easy to keep
track of. How many books did you read this month?
23. Hours of TV watched
Maybe your goal is to cut back on TV. This one is simple, especially
if your preferred method of watching is Netflix which you can easily
measure.
Those are just twenty-three examples and more than likely your unique goal
has some unique forms of progress you can measure.
All I want you to do is pick one to three things you’ll measure. Why so few?
Because when it goes well, and it will, you’ll want to measure more. I won’t
even need to encourage you. You’ll just do it on your own. It’s fun to see
progress and you’ll intuitively understand that if three points of progress are
enjoyable to watch, maybe five would be even better.
That’s part of the reason that fantasy football is such a sticky activity. You
get to track so many different points of progress. And it’s also proof that you can
measure things. If you’ve ever played fantasy football, I promise you can do this,
too.
Don’t overdo it. Perfectionism would have you measure thirty different
things, weighing out the grams of vegetables on a scale to make sure you were
getting exactly the right amount of potassium. Pump the brakes. Choose one to
three points of data. That’s it.

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