525,600 minutes
“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year?”
Seasons of Love
I love this song from the musical Rent (listen here if you haven’t heard the song or if you have just want some good vibes today).
I love to measure things. How many sales did we make? How much revenue did we generate? Did we hit our goals?
But a week ago I didn’t hit my goal. I didn’t post my weekly Friday Thoughts video. I was so upset with myself, spending precious time berating myself for not getting it done.
I have spent a year posting my video every week and have scripted, filmed and posted 52 offerings of my Friday Thoughts. My mind wasn’t thinking about the 52 though it was thinking about the 1.
I did not even realise how interesting that point of view was until a friend pointed it out to me. That stopped me in my tracks. Why was my brain focussed on just the one instead of being proud of the 52 and ready to get curious, learn and go again? When I stopped measuring how much I could beat myself up, I was able to be curious about why I hadn’t posted, get compassionate with myself and ask myself better questions.
I asked.
Who have I served?
What have I created?
What’s my next step?
Then I just got on and scripted, filmed and posted number 53.
Have you ever noticed that when you set your goals, it’s often not the hitting of the goal that really counts? By the time you get there you often don’t even notice how amazing what you’ve done is. You have become the person who just hits that level of delivery. When you hit the goal, your brain is already scanning for the next mountain to climb and accomplishment to hit.
So add this to your toolkit. The question isn’t always how many and how much.
Sometimes it’s, How far have you become? How much more do you love yourself? How much more are you willing to love yourself next year?
The song from Rent is called Seasons of Love. It’s chorus goes,
“How do you measure a year?
How about love? How about love? How about love?
Measure in love...Seasons of love...Seasons of love..”
