Achieve Your Goals Series – Record Your Progress

Alright, so if you’ve been following along in the “Achieve Your Goals” Series, you’ll have started out on some pretty awesome things already (Check out part 1 and part 2 here). So now what? Achieving goals is exciting, but it also comes with feelings of anxiety and anticipation. Good news – you can start recording your success now! Recording your small achievements is important in achieving a larger goal. There’s no way high achievers would get to be where they are if all they focused on were huge, daunting goals. Successful people imagine the big picture, but they also celebrate the little successes along the way.

Think about it this way – when you learned to ride a bike for the first time, you felt terrified. Thinking about climbing onto that huge machine seemed way out of sorts, as did the dream of actually riding it down that dirt road you’d been eying. But, with a little encouragement and a lot of knee pads/elbow pads/helmets, you got on that bike and rode it for at least 2 seconds!! That 2 seconds was a lot longer than you’d ever ridden a bike and a wonderful step forward in your journey to becoming a skilled bike rider.If parents or supporters never applaud small achievements, there’s less of a likelihood that children will persevere. But now that you’re an adult, you might not have that cheerleader ready to push you onwards. You do have yourself though, and if you’re not your biggest cheerleader already, we need to talk. Take the time (and the patience) to celebrate the good in the tiny steps. Wave the sparklers and high five yourself even when the going gets rough.

Recording your progress can also be a big deal when it comes to noticing problems. You might feel like you’re chugging right along, when you’re missing a big piece that’s essential in accomplishing your goal. The best way to notice these types of errors without hiring a full time life coach is to do some of the recording on your own. Keep records of what you did, when, so you can track where the pitfalls might lie. Take the time to write down what you want to achieve, and then break that goal into digestible chunks. Achieving big goals is hard, but if you enjoy the process and celebrate the little things, the journey to achieving your goals can be fun.

There’s nothing more satisfying than recording your success after a long struggle towards trying to achieve your goals. It feels amazing to check the items off your list and tell others that you’ve achieved a big goal. Here’s the fun thing though: you don’t need to achieve huge things before recording your progress. You can break stuff down into easy to do goals and cross each of those tiny things off to record your progress. Doing this is not cheating, if that’s what you’re thinking. Crossing little goals off your list that pile up to one big amazing goal is a great idea no matter what you’re trying to achieve. Here’s why:

Being able to say “I did it”, never fails to increase the levels of happy feelings in your body. Accomplishments make us feel good, and these feelings are essential in keeping the momentum going when things get tricky. Record your progress, even the tiniest successes, and then move forward and achieve the next tiny thing. Before you know it, you’ll have achieved your goal!