Data Doesn't Hurt

We are surrounded by data all day regardless of if we do smarty-pants work like accounting, financial projections, data science, environmental geography and other things with numbers and chemicals- or not.

Here are other sources of data we all "deal with"...

Data like what someone said to you. Data like what happened in your past. Data like your ranking on a performance appraisal.

Data happens, but data doesn’t hurt.

One of the most powerful things I have learned is this: It is not the data that is important, but how you interpret the data. This concept makes the difference in you showing up as a victim vs. an owner, a hero...

Choose to take facts as facts.

Choose to attach meaning to data carefully, so that an obstacle means you are one step closer to getting what you wanted; not that you aren't (fill in the blank) enough.

Think about how this applies to you when stuff outside of your control arrives on your doorstep. Have you lost a job? Have you applied for a promotion and were denied? Has your kid been sent to the principal’s office again? Have you texted someone and they never text you back? Did you lose a proposal?

What did you make this data mean?

Data doesn’t hurt.

Data only appears hard and hurtful when you look at data that way. So start interpreting the data in a way that makes you feel one step closer to the things you want in your life. You can recognize that data doesn’t slap you the way your own self-talk/interpretation does. And this is the best news ever because in changing the way you think about facts, you change everything.

Don’t avoid the data. Don’t blame the data. Don’t try and manipulate the data. Instead, put every ounce of energy in making the data mean something that invigorates you and moves you forward.

So, take on the data in your life like a hero. It can’t hurt you.