Why Track Your Progress

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how to go about tracking your progress towards a goal, let’s take a look at how progress tracking can help you to be successful.

Motivation

Seeing that we are moving in the right direction and making progress towards achieving our goals makes us more motivated to keep on going until we reach them. When you are climbing a big hill and you look back to see how far you have come already, it can give you extra motivation to carry on to the summit. Looking back on what you have achieved can also boost your confidence and belief that you will reach your big goal.

Accountability

Making a commitment, either to yourself or to others, to regularly review and track your progress towards a goal keeps you accountable. Accountability supports our commitment to doing what we say we will do, which increases the chances of staying on track until we reach our goal. Accountability partners can have a more powerful effect than being accountable only to ourselves. Their encouragement can keep us going when times are tough, and they will be there to celebrate with us at the finish line.

Stay on Target

Regular measurement of our progress towards a goal allows us to keep to a schedule or deadline for achieving it. If we have achieved only 10% of our goal in 50% of the time set, we know that we need to increase the rate of progress significantly in the second half of the time we have available. Certain kinds of goals may have a pattern where the beginning is characterized by slow progress, but our progress accelerates as we become more skillful. If we plan out an ideal schedule for progress, including key milestones and targets along the way, then we are supported to stay on target.