MarkStringer.github.io

Actual Progress

” I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind;”

Francis Thompson - The Hound of Heaven

"Actual Progress"

This is the chart that’s been guiding my life for the last 12 months.

As you will see, I walked 1000 miles (the wiggly blue line - sorry about the Proclaimers song that’s going to rattle about in your head for the rest of the day).

I also lost, as of today, from the beginning of April, 18.6 Kilos - nearly 3 stone (the wiggly red line).

As you can also see, keeping it off has been a battle and currently I’m “trending” up rather than down.

What I’ve left on this chart are some “imaginary lines.” The curvy yellow line is an argument with myself really, persuading myself that without really much effort I could walk 1280 miles in a year. The black line is the same distance in total but walking the same distance every day. Notice that I never get anywhere near it.

The final “imaginary line” is the one running along the bottom of the chart. 85 Kilos. This is another self-made-up figure for what would be an ideal weight. The imaginary line drawn by the medical establishment is considerably further south - around 65 kilos.

Let’s just think for a moment about those imaginary lines - just the ones on this chart. They’re clean, they’re elegant. The ones that I came up with myself? Not a lot of thought went into them. The one that came from the medical establishment (that I haven’t even been able to bring myself to put on the chart) at least some thought went into that, but it isn’t much use as a guide to anything because it’s nearly unattainable.

My life as a Scrum Master Project Manager Agile Coach Delivery Thing (you can call me “Stringer”) is about imaginary lines and real progress.

Actual progress is sobering.

Actual progress is embarrassing.

Reporting actual progress is emotional.

Actual progress rarely responds to: *Yelling *Screaming *Exhortations to try harder *Exhortations for a more positive attitude *Accusations of a negative attitude

So what does actual progress respond to?