Success Indicators

We need a few success indicators, or metrics, to ensure our final Plan aligns with our intentions. Each of the four measures of success suggested here should receive an A grade. Two F's and two A's might average to a C, but that standard is too low given the stakes.

happiness                                          goals achieved

It is essential to redefine and reboot the concept of success. For much of human history, success has meant the accumulation of power, and the main metric for this has been the accumulation of wealth in the form of money. Happiness rarely comes from wealth, as study after study has shown. Everyone has his/her unique metrics for happiness, but there are many common factors: connection, community, play, refreshment, nourishment, accomplishment, service, love. Our plan should ensure that we create, maintain and enhance "Gross County Happiness" similar to the Bhutanese "Gross National Happiness" policy. (See the 2015 GNH findings study for a template that we might use here.)

Our goals should be crafted to be clear, measurable, and trackable to our Vision. Goals may conflict; we recognize this inevitability. Goals may be unachievable: we may well lack resources. Our goals need to be prioritized. We need to develop methodologies to triage our goals and create pathways to ensure we have achieved as many of the most important ones as possible.

 lawsuits avoided                                mother nature

Avoiding legal challenges to our Plan is an important metric. A well designed Plan will have recognized, and included as much as possible, a diversity of opinions and considerations, so that many voices from all quarters have been heard and accommodated.  If we can't avoid challenges, let us prevail in ensuring that our most important values are protected. 

Reigning quietly, but powerfully, is Mother Nature, the source for all life. Whatever we do, we have to work well within her margins. Those margins are changing rapidly because of our collective human activities. "Changing rapidly" means shrinking, giving us less wiggle room. Our Plan should anticipate this decline in Nature's resilience and work to ensure we live well within self-imposed limits on our impact. Failure to do this will consign many of us to returning to the mainland.