
Being in business we are all familiar with the concept that what gets tracked, or measured, gets done. This is why we set goals and KPI's and track them. This is why we produce and analyze financial statements and all sorts of data to review. What would happen if we applied the same processes in our personal lives, to areas of our character or virtue? What would happen to our personal growth if we set personal KPI's to improve in our areas of weakness or to truly utilize our gifts, and then tracked the progress? The short answer is that we would likely experience real and ongoing personal growth. If we made this an ongoing part of our life, that would set us on a great path to become the person that God really created us to be.
The saints knew this well. One of the great saints of the last century is St. Faustina, who is known for propagating the Divine Mercy devotion that led to a new feast day being established in the Catholic Church the Sunday following Easter. It is called Divine Mercy Sunday. This was no small feat. In fact it is truly a major historical event.
What makes this accomplishment even more incredible is that she was a very simple and uneducated Polish nun. She was not a theologian or part of the hierarchy of the church. She was not even a leader in her convent. In fact, she spent a portion of her time in the convent as a the door keeper, much like Blessed Solanus Casey from Detroit.
But she loved the Lord and believed she needed to spread the word about Divine Mercy. She also knew that she could not do this well if she was failing to grow in her love and service of God and neighbor, or overcoming her weaknesses. So she did something very businesslike, with no prior training. She created a process to track her progress in living a life of love, growth and service.
She created a monthly tracker that looked at 18 different areas of her life, including performance of her duties, virtues, and spiritual activities and other areas needed to help her become the saint she wanted to be.
She tracked these areas with a simple measurement of "Victory or Defeat". She tallied these each month and then took the results to prayer and discussed them with her spiritual director. Again, this was created by a poor uneducated nun in the 1930's. So it wasn't like she had the internet, self-help podcasts, or TED talks to learn from.
ST. FAUSTINA EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE TRACKING SHEET FROM HER DIARY

From the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul (p.422). Marian Press. Kindle Edition.
This process obviously worked for Faustina based on her accomplishments and based becoming recognized as a Saint. But it is not only saints who have chosen to measure their growth. Benjamin Franklin believed the personal growth was an obligation and it needed to be looked at daily. He is known for having used a chart to track his daily progress in living 13 different virtues.

If we who are in business know the value of setting goals and measuring them, shouldn't we look at using these skills for what is most important in our life? Shouldn't we use this knowledge to become the best version of ourselves, for God, and for all those in our lives? If we truly want to be the best then we need to invest. We need to invest our time, talent and treasure into the process of improving our lives.
I know this can sound daunting and both of these examples above show a large and very ambitious set of goals, we do not need to start with such a large range. You can literally start with one thing that can be tracked or measured daily.
As cliched as this may sound, it is truly the small actions done consistently, that yield true and lasting change. We do not have to do everything at once or take giant leaps. We can truly make real changes through setting small manageable steps and doing them consistently.
Do one thing for a month or a quarter and get the habit of it. Be sure to share what you are doing with someone you trust and ask them to help hold you accountable. This will be very helpful on the days where you are on the edge of making an excuse to skip the desired activity.
After you have done this for a quarter, take a broader look at your life and see what other areas you would like to grow in or improve upon. Then look at expanding your list, but still keep it relatively short, unless you have significant flexibility in your control of time. Moving up to 3 objectives per quarter is very manageable, even for a busy person.
Finally, do not forget to pray as you begin and continue this process. Ask God what He wants you to work on and ask for the help to do it. God is amazingly gracious and never asks us to do anything that He is not willing to help us with! God bless!
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