Why is it important to monitor your progress toward goals that you have set?

There is little point in setting a goal if you will never know whether you were successful or not. To determine the level of success that you achieve, you must be able to measure your progress. When you measure your progress you can see how you’re coming along, and this is a powerful motivator to help you stick with it. If you are making good progress, your confidence grows along with your motivation. The very fact that you know you are making good progress, will give you the drive needed to see the goal through. When you measure your progress, it gives you a realistic picture of the situation. If you are not making the desired progress, you are able to see this before you fall too far behind. You can then identify the changes that need to be made and implement them.

The first step to measure your progress is taken at the goal setting stage. When setting a goal, you must set a goal that can actually be measured e.g. rather than say I want to lose weight, you would determine how much weight you want to lose. The goal you set, will determine the method used to measure your progress e.g. if, rather than, lose weight, you wished to get leaner, you might say that you wanted to lose 3 inches of your waist. In this case, the best means of measurement would be a measuring tape, where as with weight loss, a scales would be the best form of measurement.

5 Methods to measure your progress

When you are deciding on your goal, it is important that you consider how you are going to measure your progress. Some of the methods to measure your progress may not be available to you; therefore it is important that you choose wisely.

1.  Facts and Figures

Quantitative measurement is far easier and more precise than qualitative. For the vast majority of goals that you set, you will be able to find a way to quantify progress. If you’re saving money or dieting, this is easy to do. You can keep track in pounds lost or dollars saved. There is often more than one way to quantify your progress e.g. if you want to get in better conditioning you could use:

• A weighing scales to measure pounds lost
• A measuring tape to measure inches lost
• A body fat callipers to measure changes in your body fat percentage

You may even wish to use more than one method of measurement.

2. Stay on plan

You may have a few goals which can be achieved relatively quickly and with ease. However, for the remainder of your goals, you are going to need a plan. A plan allows you to break each goal down into sub-goals/milestones which you can then put into a timeframe. The timeframe then allows you to measure your progress e.g. If the task is due to be completed by Sunday; come Sunday, the task is either completed or not. There is no hiding.

This is an excellent way to stay organised. When you have a plan, you can easily determine the priority of your tasks, and which tasks are most important for each day, thus enabling you to maximise your productivity.

Sticking to your schedule is important, but give yourself some flexibility. The reason for setting a plan is to enable you to monitor progress. However, there will be times when plans need to change. When this occurs, consider it carefully and if it is necessary to change the plan, communicate the changes, to anyone who will be affected, at the earliest opportunity.

3. Keep a Record

Keeping a record of your progress, as you go along, accompanied by some personal notes, will give you something to refer to, should a problem arise. If you fail to meet your targets, you need to know why this occurred so that you can decide the best course of action. You can refer to your records where you will have noted what went wrong and, your thoughts as to why it went wrong. In addition, if you try something and, it works well, you can make a record of it. That way, not only will you be able to see what is not working, you will also have a record of the things which have worked well so that you can try them again.

When you complete a goal, it is likely that you will have to do the same thing or something similar again. You can always refer back to your records to get information on what worked and, what did not work. This gives you valuable information to create the best plan possible.

 4. Checklists

Once you have created a plan for achieving your goal, you will have a list of the tasks which need to be completed and, the date they need to be completed by. This list makes an invaluable checklist. When you complete a task, you simply tick it off and make a note of the date upon which it was completed. When you review your progress for the goal, which you should do regularly, you can quickly measure your progress and identify any corrective action which may need to be taken. Checklists are also a fantastic way to motivate yourself to achieve the goals and, boost your confidence, as they give you a visual representation of how far you’ve progressed.

5. Rate your Progress

There will always be goals for which you cannot use a quantitative method to measure your progress. Some important goals are simply qualitative in nature e.g. building your confidence. To measure your progress on these goals, you can keep track of your progress by creating your own rating system. You can decide which numbers to use for the system, the most common are 1-5 and 1-10. For this approach to be effective, you need to have a definition for each point on the scale e.g. how you would you feel if your confidence was a 4 on the 5 point scale? You would then rate your confidence each day, at the same time, and see how you are progressing. You can even plot your scores on a graph for a visual representation of your progress.

For a comprehensive guide to setting effective goals, check out the Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting.

Once you have set the goal and determined the appropriate method to measure your progress, you need to set up your system to measure your progress. This could be as simple as buying a weighing scales and deciding which day of the week, and at what time, you are going to take your weight. Some methods may require a little more effort to set up. Once you have your system set up, it will take very little time out of your schedule. For the small investment of time, you receive detailed information which allows you to make any necessary changes to accelerate your progress. When you measure your progress, on a regular basis, you receive increased confidence and motivation as you realise that your efforts are paying dividends and, your goal is getting closer on a daily basis.  You can only make an effective decision when you know where you stand and, to know where you stand, you must measure your progress.

Why is it important to monitor your progress?

Why is it in need for you to monitor the progress of goals you have set before?

How can you monitor the progress of your goals?

What does it mean to monitor your progress?