667: Intentional Living: How to Measure, Track & Create a Life That Actually Feels Good

​​(00:00) Scott Anthony Barlow: One of my favorite things in the world is putting quantifiable values to qualitative events. Here's the non-spreadsheet nerd translation.

(00:08) Finding ways to measure things that aren't obviously measurable, like emotions or values, or levels of enjoyment while doing work.

(00:15) Because when you can do this, it's far easier to create more enjoyment or better ways to work, or to have a chance to improve your own quality of life, not just to work.

(00:26) In this episode, we'll cover examples of how my wife and I measure what our memories with our kids are actually worth in real dollars. How I observe trends, and how I'm spending my day at work to make improvements. We'll even share a story of how you can learn the actual value of doing more work in your strengths.

(00:46) This is Happen to Your Career, the podcast that brings you real people, real transformations, and the courage to do work that truly fits. If you haven't already subscribed, click follow right now so you don't miss any new episodes.

(01:00) Finding ways to measure things that aren't obviously measurable, like that enjoyment at work. If you look at my calendar at any given time, you might see check marks where I wanna spend my time and Xs on the things that I don't want to do, or that I don't feel that it's my best way to contribute.

(01:23) Yes, I do know there are other hobbies out there besides putting emojis on my calendar, but this truly helps me be able to see visually at a glance how I'm doing overall. It's easy for me to tally up those hours and see if I'm making improvements in how I'm spending my time. It's not exact, but with very little effort, it helps me know if I'm making progress in the right direction.

(01:44) And it's useful and it's also fun for me, but here's the real reason I love measuring difficult-to-quantify activities– impossible questions can now be answered. So let's consider a ridiculously hard question to answer, “How much are lifelong memories worth in actual dollars?”

(02:05) Well, I think what we could do is we could measure what family memories get brought up the most at our dinner table. For us, hands down, it's our time traveling with our kids to other countries for three to six weeks at a time. Now, sometimes this is a vacation.

(02:19) Sometimes we rented a coworking space, and we've just done life in another country. But it's definitely those times. Okay, so this is not totally surprising, by the way, because research shows that the first time you do something that is a new experience, it tends to lock into your long-term memory easier.

(02:40) And for my family, that definitely has been each time we've gone for the first time to a new country and spent significant time there together. So, okay, let's carry on. What's next here? How can we get creative so that we can get to dollars and how much these memories are worth?

(02:56) Well, what we could do is we could start with the actual data that the Barlow family has. So let's rephrase this question slightly, then, “How much has it cost us in the past, in real dollars, to make those lifelong memories?”

(03:12) Okay, now we're getting somewhere because we just happen to have that info from what each of those trips cost. For example, our 23-day trip to Greece in 2022 actually cost us $26,738.29.

(03:29) Okay. Here's the spreadsheet if you're interested, and yes, of course, there's a spreadsheet. We've found that this is a pretty similar cost for other trips overseas, too.

(03:38) In any case, we can now calculate that for an average day of memories that will last a lifetime, it costs us approximately $1,162 per day.

(03:50) Now this is really useful information because now we have a basis for comparison, and it can now be used as a decision-making tool to create more lasting memories. We can say, will each $1,162 that we spend for a day of family time—will this actually make lifelong memories, or should we save those dollars for the times that really matter?

(04:17) Okay, so here's a decision-making example. Hockey game versus saving for a trip. Okay. If we're considering tickets to the Seattle Kraken Hockey game, which we live nearby Seattle, not too far away, two-and-a-half hours away in Washington State, so we're Kraken fans. Now, we could go and we could purchase those tickets.

(04:38) It would cost us approximately $1,200 on the low end for that trip. Here's how it stacks up.

(04:45) Kraken game versus saving for a trip to a new country. We could spend that $1,200 on the Kraken game, which is a done-before experience. It's something that we've done a few times. Or we could save that $1,200 and put it towards that $1,162 for a day for a new experience. Okay. Well, we know that new experiences create a higher chance of lifelong memories, and it costs approximately the same amount.

(05:14) So it's an easy decision for us. We're not gonna go to another Kraken game, and instead we're gonna save that money for a family trip. Pretty cool. Right? We can now easily use this as a filter for decision-making to create more, instead of less, lifelong memories. After all, hockey games are fun, but compared to that, using that money on trips to make lifelong memories, it's not a good trade-off for our family, so we're gonna save the money.

(05:38) What about even more impossible questions to answer?

(05:42) Like, what's the actual dollar value of spending more time working on your strengths? Is it high, or is there not really a tangible return? And what about for you versus your employer, who sees a higher dollar value, if any? And maybe another question, what's the return on spending more time on your strengths besides just monetary?

(06:02) Okay, so there's so many ways that we could answer that. We could take individual clients that began using strengths more at work and then compare those to other results. For example, Maggie was in a role that was a mediocre fit, plus she didn't actually know what her strengths were at that point in time.

(06:19) She made a concerted effort to both change jobs to a better fit, but also to get far better at using her strengths. This led to a promotion for an even better fit in 10 months with a pay increase and another 16 months after that with increased pay again, significantly so. After a few years, these changes added up to $100,000 more than what she would've made staying in that same original role and not using her strengths.

(06:49) By the way, you can go back and you can listen to Maggie's whole story here on the podcast if you're interested. We'll have everything in the show notes and description where you can just click on the link and hear her story. But what do all these nearly impossible questions have in common? Yes, of course, they're difficult to answer, but the answers are actually worth finding out because they allow you to live more intentionally, do work more intentionally, and in doing so, completely change how your life looks over a series of months or even years.

(07:20) For example, tracking task enjoyment leads to more enjoyable tasks. Using decision criteria instead of just what sounds good at the time leads to more lifelong memories. Using your strengths to decide what work you're going to take on versus what you're not going to do allows you to be able to become better at the work that you say yes to, and maybe even make a lot more dollars because you're more effective.

(07:43) But I think there's one question you have to ask yourself—what is that question? And I think that is, “How do you want to live?” I can't answer it for you, but if you do wanna be more intentional in your work or create more enjoyment, contribution, and fulfillment to your life, it comes from answering those really difficult questions.

(08:02) I've had 20 years of concise practice in doing this one specific thing, and it's definitely not still easy at all in the slightest. If it's important to you to do work that both matters and also pays well while still showing up for your family and friends in the way that you want to, then we can absolutely help with that.

(08:18) Two things that we can do for you. By the way, this is what we do at HTYC. I would suggest you do one of those two things right now. You make the choice. Either choice leads you to more intentional living and working. Choice #1– You can go ahead and also find in the show notes a link to our bestselling audiobook.

(08:39) It's actually free for a limited time, so check out that in the description. Well worth the listen, and it's also available in paperback and all the places where you buy books, but our audience tells us it's the best format in the audio version. Okay, so that's choice number one. You can click in there, and you can do that.

If you want more specific help or you're still exploring and you wanna understand how we can best help you, then I would encourage you to reach out, put email together. Just open your email right now and put “Conversation” in the subject line and send it to me, scott@happentoyourcareer.com. And then what I'll do is I'll connect you with my team and get you to the right person so that we can figure out the very best way that we can support you in living the way that you want to and figuring out how work fits within that.

It's what we do. I'll talk to you later. Adios.

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