You’re Tracking the Wrong Thing. Here’s What to Watch Instead.

“We are what we repeatedly do…therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
— Aristotle (not really)

You've probably seen this quote (often misattributed to Aristotle) somewhere before. Perhaps on social media or maybe on a greeting card. I've run across it off and on over the years, but recently I read it again and for some reason it hit different. This time, the words resonated in a way they hadn't before.

We are what we repeatedly do.

It made me think about where I might be in 10 years. What will my health be like? What will my work look like? What will my day-to-day routine become? If we are what we do, then the things I'm doing right now, today, in this moment are shaping who I am and who I'll continue to be.

This got me thinking about what we typically track in life. We watch our weight. Count our followers or subscribers. Monitor our savings accounts. Don't get me wrong—these can be valuable metrics. But if that's all we track, we aren't measuring what we do. We're actually measuring what we've done.

And I wonder if we end up watching results while ignoring what actually drives them.

These things we watch are all lagging indicators. They tell us what happened after the fact. They reflect effort, but don't guide it. When you're only staring at results, it's easy to miss what's really important.

So this week, let's talk about lagging and leading indicators: what they are, why knowing the difference matters, and how focusing on the right ones can give you more clarity, momentum, and control.

Results Are the Outcome, Not the Effort

Lagging indicators are results. They show you what already happened. They reflect past effort, but you cannot change them in the moment.

Make no mistake, they are useful and worth tracking. But all too often, they become the only thing we monitor. And I think that's where we tend to get stuck: watching outcomes instead of managing the behaviors that created them in the first place.

Lagging indicators don't tell you what to do. They tell you what happened.
Leading indicators, however, are actions. They're things you can actually control:

• Cooking a healthy meal

• Going to bed before midnight

• Not skipping leg day at the gym

• Sending an email

• Promoting content

You can do them today. You can repeat them this week. If you stay consistent, the results usually follow.

Why Lagging Indicators Lead You Astray

If I had a time machine, I wouldn't go back to buy Bitcoin or bet on horses—I'd go back and tell my past self what I've learned. I would find stressed-out Derek from a dozen years ago and explain that the metrics he's tracking religiously at work are good to monitor, but they only represent the past. I’d tell him that when all you watch are results, you become a prisoner to yesterday's news. That's the trap of lagging indicators: they create a mirage of control when all they really offer is confirmation. Okay, I’d also tell past Derek to buy Bitcoin.

Here's what happens when you let lagging indicators drive your decisions:

You develop analysis paralysis. Every dip becomes a crisis that demands immediate explanation. At work our quiz plays drop 10%, we might spend hours digging through analytics and holding lengthy meetings to dissect every possible variable, all while new content sits unfinished and actual improvements remain unimplemented. You're so busy analyzing what happened that you stop making progress.

You abandon good ideas before they've had time to germinate. That new project you launched? You give up on it after a couple weeks because it doesn't immediately take off, never mind that building momentum takes time and consistent investment.

You try to reverse-engineer results without understanding what created them. "Remember that YouTube video that suddenly got 100,000 views? I used that specific thumbnail style and posted it on a Tuesday—that must be the formula!" But correlation isn't causation, and you end up chasing ghosts.

You create a culture of anxiety. I've watched teams' moods fluctuate with daily numbers. Up 5%? Everyone's a genius. Down 5%? Everyone's questioning their life choices. Big swings in results can take their toll on creativity and morale.

It becomes harder to trust the process because you're only measuring success by what's already happened. This makes innovation really difficult, because true innovation, the kind that changes the game, requires belief. It takes a belief in actions before the results can prove you right.

Knowing your numbers is important, but deciding what to do about them is what matters.

Lead Indicators = Focus, Momentum, and Clarity

You can't sail a ship by looking at its wake. Yet that's exactly what we do when we over-index on lagging indicators. We're trying to navigate by what's already behind us.

Leading indicators are your compass. (Or your sextant. Or your GPS. I dunno, I get seasick.)

The point is that leading indicators move you forward, giving you a way to course-correct before the results show up.

To hammer this home, here’s why that matters:

• They give you daily wins. I write this newsletter and sometimes get fixated on my subscriber count. But growth comes from leading indicators I can control: writing for 30 minutes daily, reaching out to 10 potential publication partners weekly, or allocating a specific ad budget to target specific readers. These actions remain within my power regardless of the numbers. When I focus on these process-driven metrics, each completed task becomes a victory. Over time, these small daily wins compound into quality content and strategic outreach that naturally grows my audience.

• They bring clarity. When you identify the behaviors that drive results, priorities become obvious. “Post more on social media” is vague. “Publish two high-quality pieces on X and Y platforms each week” is actionable.

• They reduce anxiety. There’s a kind of peace that comes from focusing on what you can actually do. When the results dip, you don’t spiral. You look at your checklist. Did you execute? Good. Now move on.

• They shift your focus from reaction to anticipation. When the stats we track drop precipitously, we end up scrambling. It’s very common to wait for bad results to tell us that something is wrong. Leading indicators flip that mindset. They turn surprises into predictable patterns. You'll spot issues in your process before they become problems in your results.

Here's your four-step blueprint to change up your focus:

1. Choose Your Key Metric: Choose just one meaningful goal that truly matters—not five, not ten. One. Revenue, subscribers, weight, or whatever success means to you right now.

2. Map Your Path to Success: Start from the finish line and work backward with a clear head. Picture where you want to end up, then ask: What would need to happen for that to be true? The steps are usually simpler than we think, but they take follow-through. If your goal is to write more, maybe the move is blocking 30 minutes on your calendar three times a week. You don’t need a new app or another productivity trick—just time set aside for what matters.

3. Design Your Weekly Scorecard: Select 2-3 high-value actions you can definitively measure as done or not done. For example, "Walk for 20 minutes after dinner three times this week" instead of the vague "be more active." Choose actions that are specific, trackable, and within your complete control.

4. Track, Celebrate, Adjust: Score yourself weekly. Did you nail your leading indicators? Celebrate these wins regardless of whether lagging indicators have caught up. To quote my guy Ben Franklin, "Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves." Stay patient and adjust as you learn.

Remember that leading indicators are what drive lagging indicators. Focus on the inputs, and the outputs will follow.

Win the Day, Not the Outcome

Outcomes are slow.

They're noisy.

And they're often outside your control. 

What is in your control? The behaviors you show up for today. The habits you repeat. The choices you make on purpose. Tracking results can tell you where you've been. Tracking actions tells you where you're going. 

So here's the shift: stop waiting to feel successful after the fact. Start measuring the work that earns it. What's one leading indicator you could start tracking this week? Something small, repeatable, and fully within your control? Lock in on that. 

Success doesn’t follow hope. It follows habits. And often, the best way to hit your goal is to stop staring at it.

As always, thanks for reading.
— Derek 
Oh and have something interesting you think I should write about? You can reply to this email (or any other Chief Rabbit email) to suggest it.

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