Late Shift Collaborative

I just attended a training with Les McDaniel, and one of his slides piqued my interest (apologies preemptively for all of the “p”s in this p-ost). He had a slide that looked like this and was credited to Giant Worldwide, LP

I’m resisting my urge to do a deep dive on origin because I want to share this thought while it’s fresh. Les described the use of this assessment with clients as, “I have them assign a percentage of satisfaction with each element. Then I tell them to total the five numbers and divide by five, and that’s their personal peace percentage.” He went on to say that some elements will be more impactful for different people than for others, but, as I copied down the slide, I realized this is a wonderful way to check in to see if I, personally, am on track.

I did a quick baseline score for myself, and I’m going to walk you through it and invite you to do your own version.

Purpose: Right now, I feel a strong sense of purpose. I love what I am building with Late Shift, and I am working to build community that helps people though my community groups like the ADHD Mutual Aid Support and Work Group and the Knitting Circle of Doom. Because so many of my projects are in their nascent stages, I’m giving my purpose score a 90%.

Place: I adore my house and my office. I like my practicum site well enough. I wish I could get on top of the clutter at my house. I’m going to give my physical places a 90%.

People: I have wonderful friends, a loving family and partner, and really fun pets. I want more community, and I am working on building it, so I am going to give people a 90%.

Physical Health: I have been blessed with being temporarily able-bodied. During my last couple years of law practice, I stopped being as physically active as I used to be, and I am working on coming back to a creative, playful body in motion. Because this is a work in progress, I’m going to give myself a solid gentleman’s C at 70%.

Provision: I am building a new business and figuring out where my law practice, community involvement, and coaching all fit into a living that sustains me. This one is also a work in progress that warrants at least a pass. 70%.

So my peace score is 82%, cool, a B-, not what my inner former gifted child wants to hear, but not terrible. But this next part is where the magic of this metric comes in. Let’s think about where I was a year ago. I was in a job that felt meaningless, losing more access every day to my communities and activities that gave me a sense of purpose. I was definitely failing at purpose 40%. I had the same friends and family, but I never got to see them: people 50%. I had the same house, but I spent very little time there because I was at the law office for very long hours where I did not feel comfortable or happy: place 60%. My stressful job and long hours were killing me: physical health 30%. I was making good money, but it’s very expensive to be miserable, and I was losing ground every month: provision 60%. With this information, I can see that in 6 months, I have raised my score from a 48% to an 82%. That’s pretty great!

Your turn!

If you are improving, good for you! If you are losing ground, also good for you! Seeing the amalgamation of the changes in life numerically like this can provide valuable information about whether we are on a path we want to continue on or if we are making a turn at the next intersection.

If you learned something with this exercise, I would love to hear about it!