Monitor Daily Progress and Take Notes
The whole point of progress is that it is gradual. This means that everyday there are some things that are happening. This doesn’t mean that you have to check your stats 10 times a day, but more what happened that day that is related to your progress. You might say that you do not progress everyday, and that some days there are no results; but results are not the only point of progress, progress involves analyze, it involves at the minimum some basic strategy, it involves the why’s and the how’s.
How fast things are moving
If you don’t monitor progress, you will never know at what speed you are exactly going. You might think that you are progressing fairly fast, but the reality might be different. Think of someone who is seriously overweight and wants to lose 100 pounds. He says that he gives himself 1 year to lose it. He pictures that 1 year sounds reasonable and that with some effort he could pull it off. After around 3 months, he weighs himself and realizes he lost 10 pounds. He thinks it’s great and his plan is working. But by putting things in perspective, he really needs to lose an average of 8.3 pounds per month, and at month 3 he should have lost 25 pounds already. Our man is going at turtle speeds.
Our objectives are not our life!
This is the reason why monitoring daily progress is so important. We have a life to live, and while our objectives are important, they will always be secondary in our life. And because of this, we lose track of what we really want to achieve. At first we’re all excited about our new goals, but after 1 or 2 weeks when our excitement has faded and we don’t pay as much attention as we should, or at least not the attention required succeeding, we start losing focus. Yes, the objective is still on our mind, but how much are you really devoting yourself to it? How many hours are giving to it? How much did you advance last week? Are you closer now than you were 1 month ago? How closer?
You should have an agenda no matter how big or small your goal is. Your agenda should be dated and must have enough writing space for every day. This agenda should be used for only 1 specific goal. If you are working at 2 or 3 goals at a time, get 2 or 3 more agendas. At the end of each day you should write what you did for your goal. You should also write what you want to achieve tomorrow, or this week, or at specific days of the week. Decide of a reasonable space of time to check your improvements; it can be every day or once a week or every month. Write down if your current strategies are working; if they need tweaking or be thrown away. Write down if you discovered something new. For example, did you suddenly discover a tool that you can make you complete your objective in 5 months instead of 10? Don’t fool yourself and change the deadline date.
Whatever you do, whether you want to improve in martial arts or in making money, write something everyday. This will avoid you skipping and innumerable number of days without even realizing it. Just get an agenda and start writing.