The Consultant Who Changed What He Was Measuring

He had a spreadsheet he updated monthly. It tracked revenue, client count, average project value, and the number of pricing conversations that had resulted in either a rate hold or a discount.

By this spreadsheet’s metrics, the eighteen months of pattern work had produced minimal results. The average project value had increased by a small amount. The rate-hold percentage had improved slightly. Revenue was modestly higher. Nothing that looked like transformation.

He was close to concluding the work wasn’t working.

The conversation that shifted his understanding was with someone who had been doing pattern work for significantly longer. He described his spreadsheet. He described the metrics he was tracking.

She said: “Those are all behavioral outputs. When did you last measure the somatic layer?”

He hadn’t thought about measuring the somatic layer specifically. He had been doing the somatic work — the five-minute post-event reviews, the body scans, the deliberate attention during pricing conversations. He just hadn’t been tracking any of it systematically.

She suggested a different set of measurements for the next ninety days, alongside the behavioral tracking he was already doing:

After each pricing conversation, note three things: the peak intensity of the somatic activation on a scale of one to ten, whether the gap between activation and behavior was present or absent, and the approximate time to full post-event baseline.

That was it. Three numbers, after each event.

He started the tracking. The first month felt like it was confirming his doubts: the numbers didn’t look particularly encouraging. Peak intensity was still around a seven. Gap: inconsistent. Recovery: typically forty-five minutes to an hour.

The second month, he looked at the numbers in comparison to the first month. Peak intensity: a bit lower, though it was hard to be precise. Gap: slightly more consistent. Recovery: slightly shorter in some conversations, though again hard to be precise given the rough measurement.

By the third month, the comparison was more visible. Peak intensity had averaged around a five and a half. Gap: present in a majority of conversations rather than a minority. Recovery: thirty to forty minutes in most cases, occasionally less.

The behavioral metrics from the same ninety days were almost unchanged. Average project value had increased slightly. Rate-hold percentage was about the same.

Two completely different pictures of the same period.

The question he sat with after seeing these two pictures: if the behavioral metrics were flat but the somatic metrics were improving consistently, which one was more indicative of where the work actually was?

The answer was not hard to arrive at, once the question was framed clearly. The somatic changes preceded the behavioral ones. The improving somatic metrics were the early leading indicators of behavioral change that hadn’t yet shown up in the spreadsheet.

He had been tracking lagging indicators and concluding from them that nothing was changing. The leading indicators had been moving the whole time.

Over the following six months, the behavioral metrics did change more substantially. The rate-hold percentage improved meaningfully. Average project value increased enough to be visible in the twelve-month comparison. The behavioral output caught up to the somatic progress that had been accumulating throughout the period where the spreadsheet had suggested nothing was happening.

He kept the behavioral tracking. He kept the somatic tracking. The two in combination gave him a picture that neither alone would have provided: where the work was, why the behavioral output sometimes lagged, and whether the direction was correct even when visible progress was slow.

The Pattern in This Story

Self-sabotage pattern work produces somatic changes before behavioral changes. Tracking only behavioral metrics — the measures that most naturally come to mind — produces false conclusions during the period when the somatic layer is actively shifting.

Adding somatic tracking — peak intensity, gap availability, recovery duration — provides the early indicators that show whether the work is on track before the behavioral output confirms it.

The Practical Takeaway

Three numbers, after each threshold event:
– Peak somatic intensity (1-10)
– Gap present or absent
– Recovery time to baseline

Tracked consistently over three months, these three numbers tell a more accurate story of where pattern work is than any behavioral metric tracked over the same period.

The Invitation

The Abundance GPS community builds this kind of tracking into its monthly structure — providing the framework and the community context that makes consistent measurement possible and meaningful.

Seven-day free trial.