The second word in our act, improve, wait approach is to improve. When you measure outcomes, your improvement is judged against progress made in those outcomes. In some cases, that’s good. If I press the accelerator in my car, I don’t want progress to be measured by how much or how hard I press the pedal. I want it to be measured by how fast I accelerate. Similarly, if I press the brake, I’m less concerned by how much the pedal is pressed. I’m more interested in how quickly I stop. Those are good times to measure the outcomes of my actions, not the actions themselves. But when it comes to self-improvement, we have very little direct control over our outcomes. The control we can exert is through the actions we take, but even then, there are usually other factors at play when it comes to the outcomes themselves. So when it comes to self-improvement, in this case, measuring improvement in managing or reducing stress, the important takeaway is that a form of improvement is developing the actual skills required to reduce stress in your life. These are the skills of managing sleep, managing your schedule, managing exercise, and your diet. Everyone wants to cross the finish line, but in a marathon, it’s just as much about the race you run. We have to keep the bigger picture in mind. That is that it’s not a win or lose game, it’s try and learn. And learning is improving.
Measuring Progress in Stress Management