“Success is a numbers game. And you’ve got to check your numbers.” — Jim Rohn
That’s the punchline of this article, and the number one thing you need to check going into this new year.
What are your numbers in the 7 key areas of your life?
From Zig Ziglar:
- Spiritual
- Family
- Finance
- Health and Fitness
- Work and Career
- Intellectual
- Personal and Social
In each area, you need to ask questions where the answer can be a specific number.
For example:
Spirit: how much time do you spend each day in prayer/meditation? How many chapters of Scripture do you read each day?
Family: How much time do you spend uninterrupted with your Spouse each day? How many weekends do you spend simply doing something fun? How many times did you “do it” this week? How many minutes a week/day do you spend in focused time with each of your children?
Finance: How much money have you got saved in the bank? How much do you get paid per hour? What is your net monthly cash flow? What assets do you own and how much money do they each generate for you? How much money do you owe? If you stopped working today, how long would you and your family be able to survive for?
Health and Fitness: How many pushup do you do each morning? How many minutes of aerobic exercise do you do each day? How many pieces of fruit do you eat each day? What is your cholesterol level? What is your potassium level? What is your blood pressure? How much water do you drink each day?
Work and Career: How much time do you spend developing your career? How much time do you spend creating and publishing content around your area of expertise? How many engaged subscribers do you have on your email list? How many testimonials do you have in your Testimonial Book? How much is an hour of your time worth? How many words of fiction do you write each day?
Intellectual: How many books have you read in the last 90 days? How many new things have you learned this week? How much money have you set aside for courses in personal development?
Personal and Social: How many hours of sleep do get each night? How much time do you spend each day/week doing something fun? How many close personal friends do you have whom you could confide in? How many cities around the world have people who would happily put you up for the night? How many people would show up to your funeral if you died tomorrow? How much time are you spending each day working on and reviewing your personal goals?
What gets measured gets done…and also, the numbers don’t lie.
The great news is that if your answers to all of these questions are “zero”, then success in each area is simply a matter of improving the numbers by even a tiny bit.
Get 4 hours of sleep each night? Set a goal of going to bed 10-minutes earlier each month. By the end of a year you’ll be up to 6 hours of sleep.
Get paid $20/hour? Set a goal of increasing this to $30/hour…and you’d have just increased your gross income by $20,000.
Spent “zero minutes” with your kids each week? Set a goal of spending just 20 minutes of focused time with each child per week. That’s 80 minutes a month, or 17+ hours by the end of the year.
And so on.
The beauty of having numbers for each of the 7 areas, is that simply focusing on making the numbers go up will make your whole life rise as well.
Success is a numbers game. Check your numbers.