Let’s imagine every memory, events, incidents (good, bad, ugly) is a mark that we leave on a blank piece of paper – a dot that can never be erased or corrected. If success is measured by the value each dot impacts your life or someone’s life; possibly now filled with dots, what do you see?

When we reflect on ourselves and evaluate every dots on our piece of paper; ultimately called life, we can either judge ourselves  a true failure or a great success. So what did you do; did you calculate your income earned, include emotional value or couldn’t quantify any dot. In retrospect, we tend to judge ourselves through quantifiable values that are unquantifiable.

IMHO, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are just numbers that brings no contextual meaning. It’s just used for the sole purpose of quantifying organisational performance to be presented to stakeholders / shareholders / investors.

But people take measurable indicators seriously, I’m not just talking about Work KPIs, there are weight goals, saving goals, financial stability goals, happiness index, etc. This is the main reason we have so many psychological and mental issues that are stress-related. We judge ourselves too much and when we do not meet our own/peers/family/boss expectations, we tend to give up, lose faith and fall in the cracks of failure. Even so, we cannot live in a world without defined expectations, then there is no goals in life.

So how do proceed without killing our motivations or drive to succeed.

Let me share my version of simple hacks in life:

Define the next “Dot” as the next milestone/step you want to reach before your BIG goal. “Dot(s)” are experiences that you want to gather or fulfill while chasing a goal post.

For example:

If you want to lose 10kg, you would have written a perfect goal and paste it all over your room, bathroom etc. This causes immense stress although some can find it motivating. Try this:

  1. Write your goal down in a book and write detail steps to get to it, as simple as:
    • Buy an exercise ball or a yoga mat
    • Find a simple exercise routine. “Running on a spot”
    • Schedule 10 mins of your daily routine to do this.
    • ….and it goes on until you reach your goal.
  2. Once you are done with your list, for each numbered item, write ONLY the 1st “DOT” on a post-it note and stick it where you can see it.
  3. Do not remove the post-it until you did the 1st step and then continue to the next step, so on…
  4. When you have done the rest and turn this into a habit, you could be closer than your goals than you first started or even achieve it if you are diligent enough. 🙂

When you achieve “Dots” which are essentially micro-success in life, you will eventually reach your big goal. Everytime you achieve a “Dot”, you can celebrate that you are now one step ahead from yesterday. Now apply it to both your life and career goals.

REMEMBER: Don’t overdo this, start with a single goal before you expand.