Dashboards for Every Area of Life!
In the old days the vehicles we drove had a dashboard that told us the speed we were driving, how full our gas tank was, maybe a battery power indicator, and an oil light that only came on when we let our oil get so low that significant engine damage was about to occur. Today, vehicles are equipped with a variety of sensors and onboard diagnostic systems that continuously monitor the vehicle's performance while driving. These systems can perform hundreds of diagnostics in real-time utilizing the dashboard screen to communicate anything, and everything, that needs our attention. This communication is designed to give us an opportunity to fix something quickly before it becomes a major problem even if it’s just warning us to fill up our fuel tank or charge our EV batteries before they run out of fuel.
Years ago, I joined a management bureau that included over 120 of the top operators in the industry that our business was a part of. The bureau had sub-groups of 10 that met quarterly each year. The facilitator of all the groups was a genius, and she taught me more about running a successful business than anyone else apart from my Dad whom I worked with. When our quarterly 3-day meetings would begin the first thing she would require us to do was pull out our dashboard and measure ourselves against the benchmarks set by the top 20% of all the bureau’s combined data. We began with sales trends, production trends, and every line item from our own income and expense report. We then compared our current performance data to past performance data and performed an assessment in every area to see if we were improving or falling backwards. The concept allowed us to compete against ourselves for constant improvement in every area of our business. Mastering the use of the business’ dashboard assured success for anyone willing to embrace it.
It was the embracement of the “dashboard concept” that provided a valuable life lesson that led to a significant improvement in my life. My insatiable curiosity had me thinking about creating a dashboard for every important area of my life which would allow me to develop worthy goals and keep track of whether I was improving or falling backwards. I could also determine what was influencing the trend lines I would create over time to determine what worked best and what had little impact in reaching my personal goals. I created a husband dashboard, a father dashboard, a health dashboard, a volunteer and community dashboard, a personal financial dashboard, a faith and spiritual dashboard, a self-improvement dashboard, a professional development dashboard, and one I call the “give back dashboard.”
I tend to pull these dashboards out on a quarterly basis and use them to compare myself to myself. Utilizing trend lines on a chart I’ve created for each dashboard makes it easy to see if I’m improving or falling behind on my development in each of these important areas of my life. What these dashboard trend lines really indicate is that if I’m improving, I can point to specific effort I’ve made over the prior three months and if I’m falling backwards, it’s due to a lack of effort in that specific area of my life. That’s how each dashboard acts as a diagnostic tool providing real-time information that guides my actions moving forward. The greatest benefit of utilizing the dashboard thought process is the simplicity it’s brought to managing the important areas of my life. It’s also eliminated any fear and worry about the future and prepared me for the unexpected things that life throws at all of us.
YOU are the reason I’m sharing this “dashboard thought process” today. It’s something that can simplify your life, give you more control over your future, and provide a valuable tool in managing your day-to-day life. It can also provide you with an opportunity to be forewarned about a potential problem and fix it before it becomes a major problem (just like our current vehicles dashboard). I’ll even go out on a limb and claim that utilizing a dashboard for each of the important areas of your life can transform it into the life you’ve always dreamed of living. But you have to take action to make this concept work. Knowing that all humans prefer simplicity over complexity, I’m asking that you give this new perspective a try in just one area of your life. If you do, that particular area of your life will greatly improve enough to convince you to embrace a dashboard for every other important area in your life. I’m really hoping you do. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!