Measuring success is deeply engrained in both business and personal development. Sadly, we are often encouraged to measure something that is actually irrelevant to our real goals.
For instance, measuring the number of followers that I have doesn’t reflect how I’m doing financially. Just like measuring my weight or inches doesn’t actually reflect my health or my worth.
When my patients choose to work with me they are often perplexed on how to measure their progress. “How will I know if it’s working?” is a common question.
Since September is the unofficial new year and therefore wrought with weight-loss ads promoting themselves as get healthy schemes, I figure that now’s a good time to review some non-scale related measurements of success.
It’s important for me to take a moment here and speak to context. Any of these can become a substitute for the scale if we give it veto over how we’re allowed to feel about ourselves. For instance, if I use the fact that I ate outside of biological hunger cues as evidence that I’m failing, then that’s really no different than using the scale.
Measurements are data. And data doesn’t have a moral value. It’s not good or bad, it just is. If you’re not yet at a place where you can’t separate data and morality, then measurements are not likely a healthy part of your progress at the moment.
All of that to say, stay curious. Start your sentences and ponderances with ‘isn’t it interesting…’.
Here are some of the measurements that my patients have come up with over the years:
- How peaceful are they with food and body
- How often did they honour their hunger/fullness cues
- How far past comfortable fullness did they go? Did they let themselves get as hungry as they use to?
- How much time are they spending thinking about food or their body
- How many times did they say no to issue or guard a boundary
- How quickly did they pivot out of food police voices and into IE voices
- How many did they choose calm over chaos
- How many times did they check in with their body for direction? (Even if they weren’t able to fulfill the request)
- How long did they feel the feels before using a coping strategy
- How is their energy
- What about strength or endurance? Have they changed?
In the September MLR we are going to walk through all of this in greater detail. If you’re looking to make some diet free goals, then here’s your group support.
