Introduction

When reading Impact Mapping I learned the term Vanity metrics which are metrics whose sole purpose is to make people feel good. The issue with them is that those types of metrics are not tied to your business goals and limit your ability to make informed decisions.

In this post I’d like to talk about a different type of metrics that I’ve noticed recently in my personal life - Feel Bad Metrics.

Example 1: Goodreads Reading Goals

I have been using Goodreads for over 2 years. At first I really liked the Reading Challenge where you set up a goal of how many books you want to read in a given year (for example 12).

This year I have setup a goal of reading 30 books and I have been on track for most of this year. However, last month I checked my Goodreads account and saw that I am 3 books behind schedule.

I started wondering if have been slacking on my reading lately, but I felt consistent with my 30 minutes of reading before bed. Turns out I decided to read a book that was longer than usual and had a ~1,000 pages.

Last time I checked reading a longer book takes more time than reading a shorter book. It made sense that if I picked shorter books, then I would be on track with my reading goal (e.g. I could have read three 300 page books).

I asked myself these questions:

  1. Should I pick shorter books from now on?
  2. Should I spend more time on reading, so I can keep reading the books I want?
  3. Should I adjust my reading goal?

This is when it hit me - this is a feel bad metric. Not only does the metric make me feel bad as I feel like I am not achieving my goals (cries in Achiever Gallup Strength), it also takes my focus away from my actual reading related goals.

I decided to dig deeper and understand better why do I want to read on a regular basis and I boiled it down to:

  1. Health related reasons - it allows me relax before bed and increase my sleep quality
  2. Self development reasons - it allows me to learn about new stuff that could change my behavior
  3. Fun - it’s fun to read my favorite genres (recently consuming more Fantasy Books)
  4. Enriching Relationships - I get to talk with my friends about: books we are reading or for example I have noticed that phenomenon’s I read about in reportage types of books lead to deep conversations.

The Goodreads Reading Goal metric does not necessarily support those reasons (e.g. the metric encourages me to read shorter books, but what if I really want to read one that is longer but more fun?)

The Reading Goal metric was useful as it encouraged me to read more and allowed me to build a habit out of it (even though it could be considered a vanity metric, I think I got some benefit out of it). But now that I already created a habit, it’s more of a distraction and a potential source of feeling bad, so I’ll be dropping that metric.

Instead I will focus on whether:

  1. I am putting in the time to read (and currently I want to read ~30 minutes per day)
  2. I am having fun

Example 2: Activity Challenges (with streaks)

My wife has been doing this activity challenge with her friends for the last couple of years. There is an app that gives you points for each activity (and there are bonuses for streaks) and there is a ranking where you get to compare the amount of points with your friends. The challenge lasts for a couple of months.

She has been doing daily walks or riding her bike. Until one day, we got back home late and as we went to bed, she noticed that she will lose her activity streak (and you get really big bonuses for streaks in the app she is using).

Of course, she felt bad about losing the streak, but we found ourselves discussing how does this relate to her current workout goals. It turned out, she really enjoyed the past challenges as it was leading to interactions with her friends as they were all motivating each other to stay active. This year however, she didn’t feel like the challenge was leading to that many interactions compared to previous years.

In this case the streak was just a feel good number that ended up being a feel bad number after missing 1 day.

Conclusions

When you are feeling bad about a certain metric - step back and think if this metric is aligned with your goals. Think deeply about the reasons you are pursing that goal and evaluate whether that metric is useful for you and gives you a clear overview of the situation.

Metrics that make you feel good are not necessarily bad. In my experience, they can be a good temporary source of motivation (like the Goodreads Reading Challenge for me). In the ideal case if you see yourself not making progress to a particular goal, the feel good metric can show you places where you don’t need adjustments, but still give you some satisfaction about what you were able to accomplish.

A personal example for me is the number of strength workouts I do each week. One of my high level goals is to deadlift 1.5x my bodyweight. I have hit a small plateau and didn’t manage to increase my deadlift in the last 2 months. But I am happy that I am consistent with my workouts and this tells me that maybe I need to make some adjustments elsewhere (as consistency is not the issue).

If I were to focus on just the fact that the my 1 rep max did not improve, I think my motivation would have gone lower and in an extreme case make me feel feel I am doing everything wrong as the metrics would be telling me that I am not able to make any progress.