Keeping a Monthly Scoresheet
How to you keep track of where you are right now vs. where you want to be in life, and increase your self-esteem in the process?
Something I picked up from Steve Pavlina’s blog (sorry I can’t find the exact post) is the idea of keeping a monthly scoresheet. You score different areas of your life, and re-score them again one month later to see how much better or worse you’ve done.
I didn’t expect much out of it, but as I finished my first month and re-scored myself again, I was very pleasantly surprised. The areas I used were:
1) Mental
2) Physical
3) Emotional
4) Social
5) Spiritual
And I scored them upon 10. For the first month it was:
1) Mental = 7
2) Physical = 5
3) Emotional = 5
4) Social = 6
5) Financial = 5
6) Spiritual = 6
And with a surprised chuckle, I found this month was:
1) Mental = 8
2) Physical = 5
3) Emotional = 7
4) Social = 7
5) Financial = 4
6) Spiritual = 6
While my Physical and Spiritual areas had stayed the same, and my Financial area became worse, my Mental, Emotional and Social areas improved! Reflecting upon the scores to give for each area of my life made me think about the things I went through the past month, and made me realize that, yes, I have made improvements and I have grown.
You won’t believe the happy hits this gave me! Talk about depositing value in your Emotional Bank Account! Ka-ching ka-ching!
I can see how useful a tool this is now for keeping track of where you are in your life versus where you’ve been and where you want to go. It helps you:
1) Know which areas you need to focus on
2) Recognize your own growth (big points for your self-esteem)
How about a coach’s challenge? Score your 6 areas of life at this point in your life right now, whether in the comments if you’re comfortable with that, or offline in a place you’ll keep. And in a month’s time we’ll check in on that, and track the differences we’ve made over the past month, both good and to be improved.
P.S. My PPC just coughed up a little reminder of David Allen’s challenge from his book Ready for Anything. In it he says that in the one month from the time you read that chapter, something significant’s going to happen that you don’t expect.
Whoa. How very true. I wonder what’s going to happen one month from now for both you & me? 
I really enjoyed this post. It’s easy to forget how powerful our physical reactions are! I like your approach here. Especially reminding the reader that we are not always ready for change — though we think we are! I agree that the real failure is letting fear stop us. Thanks for posting this!
Hi Julie,
Thank you for your kind words. I am glad it was helpful! “Coping with Stress” is a part of a series of articles on Stress that I have written, hopefully Life Coaches Blog will be posting the rest. So keep in touch!
Kindest regards,
Karen
This is a great article. I especially like the list of symptoms… some of which a lot of people may not recognize as a sign of stress.
It’s also important to continue with your stress managment activities even when there are no signs or symptoms of stress. Doing this will help you become stressed less often and ward off stress before it even begins.
Hi Jill,
Absolutely, it should be a way of life! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.
Kindest regards,
Karen
Hi,
Great site!!!!! Good health is very important with the high cost of medical coverage. We need to have a healther lifestyle by taking care of our health eating and exercising. I am a cancer survivor and I know. Our health is our greatest asset. Keep up the Good Work!!!!!
The physical body does not differentiate between happy stress and overwhelm. Stress is stress. We need to develop coping mechanisms in our daily life to avoid the harmful, physiological effects of stress.