When you run a bath or shower, do you put your hand under the water before stepping in? Testing the water to ensure the temperature is just right makes sense to avoid scalding or shocking your skin. Testing is a great way to gauge what to expect.

Marketers test their audiences with soft launches, different taglines on ads, releasing on different dates, and packaging with a variety of color combinations. They observe which strategies get the most favorable responses and adjust accordingly. In fact, marketing is mostly about ongoing testing.

Similarly, your medical doctor runs tests to monitor your health. These may include routine blood or urine tests, or more specific tests like mammograms, X-rays, or ultrasounds, depending on what needs to be measured.

Many people measure financial progress by comparing wages to expenses or analyzing balance sheets for more profitable opportunities. But how do we measure real success? The kind that brings happiness, abundance, fulfillment, and a zest for life?

Good health is essential for a meaningful life, but are we testing for mercury, fluoride, or aluminum in our bodies? Do we test our food to ensure it’s free of additives, or assess our ability to decode ingredients on the label?

Have we established ways to test our strength—physical, resilience, and emotional—as well as our attitude? What about stress? Do we regularly check our pulse—literally—when it comes to work, people, or routine tasks to determine if we are aligned or anxious?

Aha! ~ You can’t measure what you don’t track, and you can’t change what you don’t measure.

 Life can become so routine that even when we recognize a practice is suboptimal, it is comfortable and familiar, so we keep doing it regardless of whether it brings pure joy.

When a life of freedom is the goal, it’s important to have a process to regularly check in with ourselves and measure not just how we’re doing, but how we’re feeling. Meaningful goals often begin with a clear mental picture, but without the emotion of love and enthusiasm behind them, they’re just images. When we feel tired, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, afraid, angry, disappointed, regretful, or guilty, we may not be in alignment with fulfilling our higher good.

Albert Einstein said, “There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of a good cause.” May that good cause be a life of happiness.

Watch for The Pillar Pulse Wednesday afternoon and in the meantime, check out Human U for more on releasing those self-sabotage shackles.