When you are pursuing something, be watchful for the moment when the metric turns into the goal. It is often a very delicate line and extremely easy to cross.
Let me use a recent example. I started using the Bible app for my daily Bible reading because it makes it easy to keep track of doing it every day without any additional effort on my part. At some point along the way, however, it became more important that the metric (the streaks) was not broken than the original goal: that a day should not go by without me reading the Bible. So there were times when I would not read at all, but would still open the app just to keep the streak going. The metric had become the goal.
I woke up one day and realised this shift. My response was to break the streak immediately. I do not care about the metric if it has become the goal.
Since then, I have again gone days here and there without reading the Bible, as it is harder to keep track without the streaks. As a result, I have resumed tracking with streaks.
For now, I am still focused on, and optimising for, the goal. I would be happy to break the streak again and start over if the metric becomes the goal.
That is one way in which the metric can become the goal in your pursuit. Be mindful of it, and be ready to recalibrate, because the goal is never the metric.