It’s a new year. Most people use it as a time to hit the ‘reset’ button. Cue comments like “new year, new me” and “this year I’m going to…”
Whatever comes at the end of that sentence, really just raises 1 question –
Are you actually going to achieve what you say you will in these first few, wholesome weeks of 2021 which somehow feel fresh, new, and full of hope and opportunity?
Without delving into goal setting, let’s actually focus on how you’re going to get where you want to go. That iswhat measures are you going to put in place to assess your progress towards what you wanted to achieve?
Some people set goals that need to be achieved within a short timeframe, for example:
I will apply for 10 new jobs by the end of the week
I will have moved into a new home by the end of the month
I won’t drink alcohol for 4 weeks
These goals are easy things to assess whether or not you achieved them. You either get to the end of the timeframe you set and you’ve done what you set out to do, or you didn’t.
If you didn’t, then you know that you either didn’t put in sufficient work to reach the goal, or it wasn’t realistic.
So how can you assess your progress?
From a health and wellbeing perspective, although this really depends on your goal, there are a number of things that you can measure to assess whether you’re heading in the right direction.
Here’s a list of 10 things you can track:
- Your scale weight;
- Your girth measurements;
- Your daily water intake;
- What you eat and when every day;
- Whether you wake up while you’re sleeping;
- If you can touch your toes when you first wake up;
- Whether you can think clearly during your day, and for how long;
- Your average daily energy levels;
- How many steps you walk in a day;
- How many times you go to the toilet.
Observing each of these things from one day to the next can give you vital information about your body and how it’s responding to your daily activities.
This information then informs you whether or not what you’re doing is working, or whether you need to change it up.
So if you are keen to make some progress this year, whether it be your health, life or career, note down some tangible things you can track that allows you to periodically assess how you are performing relative to the goal you set at the beginning.
Doing this will empower you to be the master of your own destiny and progress forward in the direction you choose, rather than being carried along by the change train.
This article was provided by Vitruvian Health. If you would like more assistance on goal setting and things you can track along the way, Vitruvian Health is running a free online Goal Setting Workshop on 16 January at 10am – 11.30am. If you’re interested, please check out the video below.