How To Flip Statistics For Your Own Good

For the lovers of football (and that is soccer y’all Americans), you will not find a staunch football fan that does not know his numbers. In fact, the game has gone the way of numbers so much so that we have organizations that specifically track these. If you wanted to know how many kilometers a footballer put in a particular match, you just check the stats.

Numbers in Sport Performance

As players are being sold and bought from one club to another, it is common to hear their stats being quoted here and there. The Premier Football tournament in the whole wide world is the Champions League where Top European teams compete each year. Billions of Euros are spent and competed for each year. The total assent value of the players, coaches and teams participating in this competition is mind boggling in terms of numbers.

Actually, there has never been a single team that has ever won and defended the Champions League crown (in its current new format) successfully, until Real Madrid did it this year. One of the stars of the night that Real Madrid defended their crown is none other than Christiano Ronaldo. Incidentally, the 32 year old football maestro has had a difficult season with his fans. They have whistled him with disgust in his low days, a man who has nearly broken all the club records…but I digress. After helping his team defend the crown by scoring two goals, Christiano was asked what he had to say about his detractors. What he said was classic:

“This is one of the best moments of my career but it seems I am able to say that every year,” he said.

“People won’t be able to criticize me because the numbers don’t lie.”

–Christiano Ronaldo

It’s All About Numbers!

“People won’t be able to criticize me because numbers don’t lie”. What a statement of pure truth. When it’s all said and done, what will distinguish a performer and a pretender is numbers. And the whole world is now obsessed with numbers. People have fallen in love with statistics because they can interpret stories with their use. I love numbers and statistics too. Numbers tell you the truth. You can use them to plan and you can use them to interpret performance and so on.

The Sorriest Thing

But let’s come right after the fanatics of stats, shall we? We have people who know the range of stats of their football players: How many free kicks, tackles, wins, steals, headers…et all. They have them at the back of their hands and they can quote them unflinchingly. That’s OK, but the same guy does not have his own stats of anything in life apart from his age!!! Can you believe that?

Now, I love the fact that we are so adamant about numbers and stats..but I think our focus has to change. We need to stop looking at products, businesses, teams, the nation and so on…and start applying stats to our lives! Can you imagine what would happen if we all had our personal stats to religiously track?

Types of Personal Stats

The following are just a sample of the Stats that we can Track faithfully. I am willing to bet that smart people have already made the necessary Apps for this. I recently introduced an App called Money Manager to my team and they have fallen in love with it. It shows us our financial stats but I am going ahead of myself.

1. Financial Stats:

You know what is here…things like Savings, Investments, Reserve Accounts, and so on. Can you imagine if we had our own stats in this area and we followed them with such zeal as we do the stats of our football heroes?

2. Personal Health Stats:

How many times did I jog this week? How many Kilometers? At how much time? How many calories did I cut? How many strength exercises did I put in this week? How many glasses of water did I consume today? How many fruits did I eat? How many hours did I sleep? How much time did I spend seated in one position? Believe me, these are critical stats that we need to keep.

3. Relationship Stats:

How many times did I hug my wife today? You think that is funny? It’s not. We need to keep track of that stat. How much time did I spend with my wife in deep conversation? How much time did I spend with my kids today playing, talking, empowering and so on? How much tie did I spend growing so I can be a better person? These are very important personal stats to track

4. Mental Stats:

How much time did I spend today writing, reading, meditating, dreaming, mind mapping, brain-storming etc? How much time am I spending this week to learn an new skill? How many books have I read this month? How many master minds have I been part of? Again, these stats are more important than those we track of our football heroes.

You get the picture. You can see that this calls for a whole different approach to personal planning. It calls for us to be intentional. If our stats would be maintained and tracked for a considerable amount of time, I am willing to bet that we will rise to the top of whatever clan, group, organization or situation we find ourselves in. But what really are the benefits of flipping the stats and start tracking our own? Glad you asked.

1. Brings Intentionality Into Focus

There is nothing as inspiring and equally as scaring as seeing your own personal stats of progress daily. In fact, the only true weapon that will enforce personal intentionality is tracking our own stats. It keeps us on track.

2. Helps You Stay On Purpose

Even after you have discovered your purpose, it is so easy to veer off track if you do not have stats to track. Tracking of personal stats helps you bring your God-given purpose to fruition. Speaking of God, I have noticed how meticulous and particular He is about numbers. I hate (sorry) reading the Book of 1 Chronicles because it shows names, genealogies, numbers etc. God is tracking. Why can’t we learn from Him also?

3. Helps You Accelerate Goal Attaining

Goals not tracked will become like new year resolutions–forgotten before the end of January. I do not need to belabor this, it is so obvious. In fact, the reason why most of our goals are not yet attained is because we are not faithfully gathering stats around them.

4. Helps You Say No

Time is wasted daily on many things that need our attention. But when you know that you have stats to track, you easily learn to say No to very many unnecessary meetings, functions, gatherings and requests that do not primarily server your goals and purpose. But if you had no stats to track, you have this illusion that you have time..and so you give your time to all these distractions without knowing.

So there you have it. Next time you catch yourself looking at Aaron Ramsey’s stats, remind yourself that you also need to track your own. Have a meticulous day, won’t you?