I have always found the month of July a good time to sit back and review my goals for the year. Knowing that the year is more than halfway over, I can see if I am still on track to achieve the goals I set in January.
Regularly monitoring your progress is a key component of goal achievement. Depending on the goal you should track your progress at least weekly or even daily. The more complex the goal, the more frequently you need to monitor how you are doing. Tracking progress helps to maintain clarity about how well you are doing. If you are having trouble reaching your goal, tracking can help you decide if you need to modify the goal, throw more resources at the goal. Look for different ways to attack the goal, pay more attention to the steps you need to take to reach your goal, or even decide if the goal is still important to you. Set up a system to track your goals on a regular basis. You can set a reminder on your phone or put times to review your goals in your calendar. The more frequently you visit your goals, the better chance you have of achieving them.
Reviewing the steps that we have already accomplished toward a goal can keep us motivated to push forward. Each part of the goal that we accomplish provides momentum to keep working on that goal.
In the book “9 Things Successful People Do,” Heidi Grant Halvorsen recommends focusing on how far we have left to go with our goals to increase our motivation to complete a goal.
Take a few minutes to review your goals and set up a system to track your progress for the rest of the year. Once you have reviewed your goals, set the action steps you need to take to complete your goal. Follow these suggestions and you will have achieved your goals by the end of the year.