Scoreboard

When you go to a game and arrive late, what's the first question you ask, "What the score?" The scoreboard clearly shows where each team stands at any point in the game. What if there was no scoreboard and no score? What if the players just ran the ball back and forth? Wouldn't be enjoyable would it. Its the struggle that we cheer on.

The same can be said for your personal life. Throughout my life I have had various scoreboards. Grades are a common scoreboard in school. Retirement targets are a common scoreboard for those later in life. But you can have scoreboards for anything you are intentionally trying to improve.

When we were working toward eliminating our debt, we had a scoreboard that showed our progress and we put it on the bathroom mirror so every day we could see the score. We've also done the bathroom mirror scoreboard saving up for a new vehicle and buying a house. When you can see where you are and see progress (or the lack of it) its motivating.

I've also had personal scoreboards. I track my reading (thank you GoodReads.com for having an annual book reading challenge) and my running (miles per week, pace, etc). My phone helps me with scoreboards for steps taken, calories burned, diet components, stairs climbed, water consumed, blood pressure, weight, as well as a host of other health metrics. All of these are scoreboards. They tell us where we are at and how much progress we are or are not making.

The nice thing about a scoreboard is that it keeps you from deceiving yourself. I've heard it said that people always underestimate their expenses and overestimate their bank balances (thank goodness for apps to check your bank balance). Having a scoreboard that you check regularly can help keep your goals in the foremost of your thoughts.

There is a trick, however, to picking the right scoreboard. For instance, when I started running I wanted to track how much weight I lost so I weighed myself daily. The problem is when you run, you can easily gain more weight in muscle than you lose in fat. So when trying to lose my belly, weight may not be the best (or at least the only) scoreboard. So I started measuring my waist as well. 

As you can see on the chart, there were times when my weight was flat, but my waist was shrinking (November to December or March to April). It was also hard to hide from the scoreboard when the pandemic hit. Suddenly all my health habits were thrown into disarray as days blended into weeks waiting for the pandemic to pass. It wasn't until July that I realized that it wasn't just going to pass and I needed to make some changes (July and August were my first 100 mile months).

Without the scoreboard, I probably wouldn't have redoubled my efforts to continue to make progress. And without the correct scoreboard, I would probably have been discouraged when all my running led to no weight change, or redoubling my efforts led to very little weight loss. But because I had another scoreboard that helped me get a better view into the progress I was actually making towards my real goal (better health), I can see that I am losing more belly (and actually at my lowest point in a long time).

The other warning about scoreboards is to make sure you are paying attention to the actual goal and not just putting pointless points on the board. My goal is health, not weight loss or belly loss. If those scoreboards were to become too important to me, I may do things that actually damage my health, like starving myself to lose ten pounds a week.

So figure out what kind of scoreboard will help you stay motivated and see progress towards your goals, and then put it in front of you every day.