Tracking Your Progress

In the ezine of June 24th, I talked about The Action Plan (click here for that issue). Today I want to follow this a bit further and talk about how to track your progress. It’s great that you have a written goal (and you do, right?). Now we need to discuss how you track your progress for that written goal. Yes, you should be tracking your progress! After all, how do you know when you’ve achieved your goal if you don’t track your progress? Equally important, do you know how you achieved that goal? Hint: Successful activities always produce successful results. No matter what your goal, a clear understanding of the “how” is critical.

There are some important ideas wrapped up in this concept of tracking your progress. First, writing a goal makes it more likely that it will be achieved. Writing down your progress toward that goal, i.e., activities and actions, also makes it more likely that you’ll reach your goal. Writing makes it real! The second idea is that people often remember setting goals and achieving them, but have a much more difficult time recalling how they did it. From the perspective of having a profitable business, the how is in many ways more important than the goal itself. Tracking your progress lets you see what worked and what didn’t work. It is a blueprint for success. When dealing with a new goal, the ability to look at methods, techniques, and activities that have been successful is invaluable – not to mention a huge timesaver. The cool part about writing all this down is that you now have the resources, methods, and techniques that work for you. In effect, you have a case study.

If you are working with a coach/mentor this tracking is hopefully part of your program. It allows you to be very specific with your coach/mentor about your activities and the results of those activities. Speaking from the coach perspective, the client who utilizes the Action Plan and then tracks their progress is always successful, because it combines both thought (planning and goal setting) and action (activities and actions), the perception of progress is matched by actual progress. The client is more energized, focused, and likely to reach their goal ahead of target. One of the positive spinoffs of this process is a heightened creativity by you, the client.

Download a copy of the form I use with my clients. Feel free to modify it to suit your needs. Happy tracking!

©2010 Cindy Hillsey

Tagged as: goals, tracking