When it comes to accomplishing goals, one thing that many
people tend to neglect is that, usually, goals must be consistently tracked and
reviewed. This article points out the importance of tracking your goals and
suggests four different approaches for how to effectively track your goals,
according to the different nature of the goal itself. Main thing you can take
away from this article is that no matter what type of goals you set, you should
always find something to track your progress.
Effectively track your goals. One of the most common reasons that people don't get to
accomplish their goals is that we tend to get distracted, and we lose track of
important things that need to be done consistently in order to move forward
towards our goals. Maybe you have set a perfectly achievable goal and planned
every detailed step, but without effectively tracking your goal and knowing
your progress, most certainly you will get discouraged when the first obstacle
gets in the way and end up giving up on your goal eventually.
Discipline yourself to keep on track
to really achieve any goal that is worthwhile until it's accomplished. There are several ways to effectively track your goals.
Review your goals regularly,
preferably daily
- Keep yourself constantly reminded of your goals by reviewing them at a specific time each day. It can be in the morning, first thing after you get out of the bed. It can be at night just before you go to sleep. Write down all your goals in a notebook, or store them in a computer software. When you review them, envision how accomplishing that goal will make you feel.
- Check your current progress, understand what you did to move it forward, find out what else you still need to do. By doing this regularly, you train your mind to become alert to things that are related to your goals, and gradually your mind will automatically guide you to do whatever needed to achieve them.
Break down a goal into actionable
steps
- Many people tend to easily get overwhelmed by all the things they need to do to accomplish a goal. The trick is to break down a bigger goal into smaller actionable steps. For example, say your goal is to start your own business. There are many things you will need to do. But before spending too much time on thinking about how difficult or time consuming they will be, first break things down a bit. For instance, obviously first few steps towards your goal could be: decide an overall direction or business model, find a right product/service to sell, list requirements to make this product/service work, etc. If any of these steps still looks big, break it down further. Once you break it down to doable steps, all you need to focus on is just one small step. As long as you keep doing these small steps, the completion of the goal will take care of itself.
Break down a goal into quantifiable
results
- Find a measurable aspect of your goal, and write it down as a number. For example, your goal could be to lose weight, then the number is your body weight. If you want to finish reading or studying a book, the number is the number of pages to read. If your goal is to save money for a dream vocation, the number is the amount of money you put in a bank account. As long as you know what this number is, you will always know your progress. All that's left is just to keep doing things that help you move that number closer to your goal's end result, and stop doing what doesn't change the number.
Track a goal by the amount of time
you spend on it
- There are certain kind of goals that can't be easily broken down to definitive steps. It is often difficult to find any obvious measurable aspects for their end result. They can be goals, such as, stay in shape, have a peaceful mind, become more fluent in a foreign language, etc. For this type of goals, you can try tracking the amount of time you spend on doing things required by them. For instance, to stay in shape, track how many hours you work out per week. For having a peaceful mind, track how much time you spend meditating, or doing yoga per day. For becoming fluent in a foreign language, track how much time you spend practicing speaking the language per day. So on and so forth.
