As leaders we spend a great amount of time setting goals for our teams and holding them accountable to their performance; this is key to the overall success of an organization. However, measuring performance is no longer reserved just for projects and teams within a business. It is also important to spend equal, if not more, time setting our own key performance indicators in relation to our business/leadership roles as well as our personal lives.

Setting your own KPIs will keep you motivated and accountable. Even if you are really good at your job and already crush your goals, or you are super diligent about maintaining your health and diet, you still want to set your own KPIs and track your progress.

KPIs must be simple, sensible, achievable, and valuable. Do not over complicate your KPIs; keep them simple, straightforward, and concise. They should be practical, yet still push you to achieve them. Lastly, your KPIs should always be in alignment with your values.

KPIs are most effective when they are laser-focused, rather than broad. That being said, when you determine your list of personal KPIs, you want to get really granular with the details. The more specific you can be, the more clarity you will have around how to achieve the goal.

Let’s take a look at a technique you can use to set effective KPIs. A very simple way of setting simple, clear, and effective KPIs is by breaking them down using these three categories: objectives, measures, and targets.

Objectives

An objective is an overall, overarching goal that is fairly broad. This is typically an area of your life such as fitness, relationships, wealth, mental well-being, etc.

Measures

Measures will help you further outline what exactly you are looking to achieve within your chosen objective. There will likely be two or three (maybe more) measures tied to one objective.

Targets

Targets are very specific and very detailed. There can be both short-term and long-term targets — what to achieve in six months and in one year. These could also be daily routines. By setting targets you are able to get more granular and clear in tracking your performance.

Take a look at this example: