Scorecards go with baseball. Listing the players and then their performance by inning. This used to be a tradition that is not adhered to as much today.
Scorecards appear in our lives episodically. If you are in business for yourself, you will get regular financial statements. When applying for a loan, you are asked to fill out your assets and liabilities.These scorecards are primarily focused on financial matters.
Rarely do we fill out a scorecard as to where we are in our lives unless asked. How often do we stop to think if where we are, in our lives, is where we thought we should be?
This is a difficult exercise for many reasons. Our mind wanders. Our focus dissipates. Our phones distract us. We never make the time to write down or say what is important for us to accomplish. It’s really hard to stay disciplined. It’s hard to sacrifice for something better a year from now.
A good friend of mine recently told me that the reason I was making progress on a goal was because I said it. I declared it out loud to another person. This declaration became a verbal scorecard for me.
Without our list of things we want to accomplish we have no idea what we are to measure or what we are looking for in terms of results. Think of the captain of a sailboat that needs to go from point A to point B. Instead of this approach to his sailing today, he tells you that we are taking off and “we will just see where we go”.
Milestones or deadline dates are used extensively in project management. When the goal is known and is broken down into steps that must be completed at intervals to make sure the end result occurs.
It’s tough to do this with our lives. But I have found that it is necessary if we want to achieve something different or evolve our life into something greater and helpful to others. It’s important for us to do yearly or every other year. Financially, with respect to job responsibilities and skills acquired, and even with our relationships. Are we continuing to be a good friend or good spouse?
Scorecards can also begin to highlight what’s missing in our lives. Helping to get us to an “aha” moment seeing more clearly what we need to focus on to get to where we want to go.
The nice thing about our scorecards is that we are the only batter and the game never ends. Take a few minutes to fill out your scorecard to look back to see where you have been. You may be surprised to find how close (or far) you thought you would be.