Small Things and Metrics for Increased Mojo

I’ve got a little bit more to share with you about building your Mojo—that level of happiness and zest for life you have. As I mentioned in the last couple posts, there are a number of things you can do to greatly increase your Mojo as described by Marshal Goldsmith in his book MOJO, How to Get it, How to Keep it and How to Get it Back.

One particularly great Mojo builder for me is to be proactive and make things happen that can lead to greater happiness and more fulfillment in your life. For instance, the other day I asked my old friend Lynn Lehmann to go to lunch. Lynn is a great guy and has done many big things in his life including being a talented radio announcer and both writing and producing for TV. At lunch, our conversation and interaction raised my Mojo by stimulating my mind and enhancing the friendship we have. I think the meeting helped increase his Mojo as well.

In this case, having a great conversation was a relatively small thing I did to increase my Mojo but it only happened because I made it happen. Being proactive by asking people to go to lunch, planning a party, or setting up a golf or tennis outing is pretty simple and the interaction can do wonders for your Mojo.

Another trick that helps all of us improve our Mojo is to use metrics. Metrics are measurements of our progress and, yes, even our failures. Goldsmith says, “We all employ personal metrics to measure our progress during the day. If we’re on a diet, our metric is stepping on the bathroom scale each morning. If we’re trying to quit smoking, we’ll count the number of cigarettes we light up each day. If we’re training for a marathon, we’ll track our weekly mileage. If a number can be attached to it, we’ll measure it. The most pervasive metric, of course, involves money: how much of it we’re earning, how much we’ve saved, how much others are earning, and so on.”

Goldsmith goes to say that, for the most part, we tend to ignore and not measure the negative stuff that is not to our liking and that’s not good for us. He suggests that measuring the “bad numbers” is precisely what we need to do more often. Measuring only positive progress is like surrounding ourselves with sycophants as it is “good for the ego perhaps but not the most accurate picture of how we’re doing.”

So my bottom line advice is for all of us to be more proactive and to start using metrics of both the positive and negative things to see how it ramps up our Mojo. Then next week we’ll talk about Goldsmith’s great advice when it comes to having another person give you feedback and how it greatly increases your chances of success.