The Score
Whoever scores more goals is the winner.
Whoever gets a higher mark in a test gets a higher grade.
Whoever earns the higher amount of money is richer.
A numerical score can act as a tool we can use to better understand our successes.
I love numbers, but when can keeping track of the score become a bad thing?
The Negatives of Keeping Score
You’re Uptight - This can strain your relationships. Being driven to always achieve, rarely to sit back and relax will see us never appreciating how far we’ve come. It also saps the enjoyment from any growth process. Do yourself a favour and reward yourself when you do something great, instead of seeking to always increase the score.
You’re Too Competitive - Another way to strain your relationships. If you’ve been to Tenerife, and your friend has been to “Eleven-erife”, it’s likely to be unpleasant to be around. If everything is a competition, you might one day find yourself in competition with yourself. Ultimately, the best way to not make everything a competition with those you care about is to enter a competition with yourself. Aim to beat the version of you from yesterday.
You Don’t Know How To Lose. When You Do, You Don’t Learn From It - If you always keep score, and lose, you’re going to be driven to win next time, regardless of the negative impact on others, or the negative impacts on yourself. It’s said those at the top of their game have to possess some level of killer instinct. Still, if this mentality stops them from learning when they do lose, they likely won’t make it to the top of their field.
We Can Overemphasize Metrics and Minimize Feelings - Always focusing on one score beating another is logical, but this can minimise feelings. If one team beats another by 10 goals, logically, it looks like a dominating win. If the winning team were a team of professionals against a team of children, it would be less of an impressive victory. The conditions are important, as are the feelings associated with any game. You don’t want to upset everybody, or you could find yourself playing team games alone.
Comparison With Others - Compare the you today to you from yesterday. Learn from other people, but don’t compare yourself to them. You’re unique, and can only compare to yourself.
Apples to oranges, the act of comparing your life to another’s is more like comparing an elephant to an apple, it makes no sense to compare someone’s life that you have no knowledge about to that of your own, of which in all earnest is not something that you completely understand yourself. - Forrest Curran.
How To Balance The Score
How can we use scores to maintain accountability and track progress, without relying too heavily on them?
Set Realistic Goals - If you want to be the best in the world next week, you’re going to be driven by unrealistic metrics. This can turn us into unpleasant people to be around. Small steps compound over time. Let yourself be patient enough to delay gratification.
Reevaluate Often - If you think you’ve set a realistic goal or score to pursue, and then realise you perhaps overshot too much, don’t be afraid to change. The same concept applies to setting goals that are too easy. Be as balanced as possible when setting goals and keeping score, and be flexible enough to change once you recognise imbalance.
Understand Your Weak Points. Work To Limit Their Prevalence - If you’re competitive and snap at those you care about when losing, even being aware of it places you in good stead. You can then work to limit its impacts when you get too deeply focused on scores. We all have weaknesses. Being aware of them is step one to limiting the impacts they have on us.
Sources:
https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/how-to-make-better-decisions-using-scoring-systems
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/concept-keeping-score-success-vibrant-leaders-3t3vf
Perfect post. Metrics as has always shown us, make us lose the sight of why we do and where we're. We forget our little achievements that very often can cheer us when we aren't on our good moods. We measure our imperfect selves and deman more than we can do.