What is a successful life? What gives your life the most fulfillment?
Answering these questions forces you to identify key outcomes and set goals to attain these outcomes. What does your life look like if you’re living it to your fullest?
The answers - as well as the associated outcomes and goals - are different for each of us. However, one thing remains the same for all. Goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound). In essence, a good goal is one that’s quantifiable.
And just like a goal, your current life needs to be equally quantifiable. Through the measurement of your present, you’re able to better understand yourself and where you need to focus your goals. It helps you identify areas of your life that need improvement. This is key. You can’t live your ideal life and set effective goals if you don’t understand how to get better.
The “quantified self” is a recent movement that uses technology and data acquisition in an attempt to better understand oneself. It’s the act of self-tracking key inputs and areas of life that help a person with self-knowledge and personal growth.
Practicing the ideology of the quantified self leads you to a better version of yourself. It gives you clarity on your current state. It provides a baseline of understanding that equips you with the knowledge needed to define, and achieve, a fulfilling life.
The quantified self is also referred to as “lifelogging.” The major application of this lifelogging technique is to increase health and wellness, which include numerous areas of your life.
The challenge with the quantified self and the act of lifelogging is that it’s hard to identify key areas of focus. You want to increase your health and wellness, sure, but what does that mean? Is it physical, emotional, or anything in between?
Then, if you’ve correctly defined these areas, how do you score each one so you get a high-level picture of your current life-state? It’s tough, but Launchpad is here to help.
It’s important to break down your life into eight specific areas: relationship, time, financial, career, mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional. Within each of these four areas are additional inputs such as financial, career, relationship, and time. Each of these is a core area of focus and something you need to be constantly self-checking.
If you remember, your mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional areas are direct inputs to your energy levels and make up the “achievements” of your life. Each four of these is important on their own, but they also combine to give you a better understanding of your overall life-situation.
Start by asking yourself to rank each one of these four on a scale of one to ten. Be honest with yourself and slide the scale to the number you think is most accurate. Then, based on these eight numbers, add them up together and divide by eight, giving you your total life score.
Rank the following four high-level areas on a scale of one to 10:
All of these inputs funnel into your overall “life score,” ranked from zero to forty. 20 - 29 is good, 30 - 34 is great, and 35 - 40 is peak life performance. Where do you rank in with your life?
Once you have your base score, you can use it as a benchmark to improve yourself over time. If your life score is 20, for example, you can start to plan your life so that you can increase its achievement, fulfillment, energy, and reduce its stress, thus increasing your life score.
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