Misfit Return of Self

The below was on old draft I just came across from about a year ago or so...just an initial thought stream...not necessarily thought out...but I wanted to save it. Had forgotten it was here...and kind of cool that it was.

In investment portfolio management there is a concept called the Misfit Return. The concept as I apply it here is that we can compare our "returns" to a misfit benchmark, where a benchmark is something we use as our barometer of success. So, choosing a benchmark becomes very critical. If we choose the wrong benchmark, then we are comparing our performance to something that we did not intend to.

It seems too common that as individuals we don't intentionally choose our benchmark for ourselves, for our life, and who we want to be or how we want to live. We are significantly impacted by our environment and we make decisions as children that shape who we become. Those decisions are made by an unknowing child or by someone in our life, that may have our best intentions at heart but do not necessarily reflect our heart. So, we grow up with this externally suggested benchmark of who we are, who we should be, how we should act, live, etc.

This seems crazy, no? We compare ourselves to a benchmark that we never chose? What sense does that make? Yet, I've done it too. And yeah, I've spent time over the years thinking about who I want to be or trying to have a vision for my life and all those things, and yet, I never really spent all the time required to understand what benchmark I am currently operating around. Is it the one I would design if I started from scratch? Why not start from scratch? How would I design it? How would I implement it?

What I've decided is that I am going to design my own benchmark. One based on characteristics of who I want to be. Values that matter to me. I will rebuild my foundation (a foundation that I lost long ago - story for another day) around my own intentional design of my benchmark. I will measure success according to it - not according to the false benchmark that slowly established itself in my life. I think of this as a personal revaluation process. Performing an audit on who I am and working through the process of revaluing what is important to me and how I will measure my success.