Take inventory of your successes. What comes to mind? Your title at your company? How much money you make? The value of your home? An award you’ve won? If you had to measure your success, would you place yourself in the top 10 percent? Regardless of which success percentile you stand in, does the nagging sensation that something isn’t quite right tug at you? You’re not alone.
Ruth McClain, a talented seamstress, used to have a fixation on crooked yardsticks, observing a curve in one, a bow in another, a nick in another. Asked about this, she said, “If you measure garments with a crooked yardstick, the garment will look right when you finish making it. It will come out the right size, but the person who wears it will feel like something isn’t quite right. When you measure with a crooked yardstick the finished product never feels right.”
Goals and benchmarks others set for us create a similar effect as measuring garments with a crooked yardstick, because even if you hit the benchmarks something still won’t feel quite right.
Sales goals, income levels and possessions never fully satisfy us when someone else sets them as a standard of success. Who said you had to become a multi-millionaire, or that your company had to grow by seven percent a year? Sure, they reflect something, but they may not reflect what matters to you.
Here are four questions that will help straighten out your yardstick:
Choose your yardstick carefully. Your success and happiness depend on it.
Source: Gerry Sandusky is the play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Ravens, and a speaker, corporate trainer and author of The New York Times bestseller, Forgotten Sundays. He is the recipient of two regional Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Awards for his accomplishments in broadcast journalism.
Goals and benchmarks others set for us create a similar effect as measuring garments with a crooked yardstick, because even if you hit the benchmarks something still won’t feel quite right.
Sales goals, income levels and possessions never fully satisfy us when someone else sets them as a standard of success. Who said you had to become a multi-millionaire, or that your company had to grow by seven percent a year? Sure, they reflect something, but they may not reflect what matters to you.
Here are four questions that will help straighten out your yardstick:
- Who are you? What are the essential things you want people to remember about you or your organization long after you’re gone? What makes you feel special and fulfilled?
- Where are you, and how long have you been there? That’s your present and your past. Know it and honor it. Now stop letting it limit you. It’s just your starting point for the future. To get accurate directions you need to know a starting point and an ending point. Your starting point doesn’t define you.
- Where are you going? A lot of people and organizations can’t answer this. Stop until you can. If you don’t know where you want to go, how will you know if you’re on course or off course? Imagine outcomes that feel true and authentic. Make sure your vision of it feels right.
- How will you get there? Probably the same way Ruth McClain did: measuring everything with a straight yardstick. You will remain the product of a crooked yardstick until you have the courage to define success on your terms and measure it only by your terms. No matter how good everything looks, it won’t feel quite right, and achieving more won’t change that.
Choose your yardstick carefully. Your success and happiness depend on it.
Source: Gerry Sandusky is the play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Ravens, and a speaker, corporate trainer and author of The New York Times bestseller, Forgotten Sundays. He is the recipient of two regional Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Awards for his accomplishments in broadcast journalism.