Staying on Course with Goals: Self-Evaluating Your Progress
You’ve set your goals, established new routines, but are you seeing the results you were expecting? Are your goals still clear? It might be time to self-evaluate.
Checking in with yourself is often overlooked, particularly when it comes to building healthy habits. Goals don’t usually have one endpoint, but rather many milestones and stops along the way.
And, things change. What’s the why behind your goal? Has it changed? If so, it could impact your motivation levels.
We recommend self-evaluating your progress every month or two to see where you’re at. You might be pleasantly surprised at how far you’ve come.
At this time of year, 80 per cent of people who set New Year's resolutions have let themselves slip back into old behaviours.
But, if you’re reading this, you probably want to be part of the 20 per cent who stick with it. Here are some tips on how self-evaluating can keep you on track:
Find an accountability partner
This should be someone you are comfortable sharing your goals and progress with. Simply knowing that another person knows where you want to be and how hard you are trying is hugely motivating.
At GoGet.Fit, accountability is key. You are first and foremost accountable to yourself, but bringing another person into your journey ups the stakes.
Assess your progress
Just because you haven’t completed 100 per cent of your goal doesn’t mean you haven’t made tremendous progress. Don’t be disappointed that you aren’t completing 150 minutes of physical activity per week, when you started at a fraction of that. Instead, be happy that last week you made it to 100 minutes.
Change happens regularly but transformations take time. If you are 1 per cent closer to your goal, you’re still making progress.
Evaluate your methods and make adjustments
What you needed to start your wellness journey might not be what you need to continue it. We all use different strategies when trying to build habits - some work, some don’t.
Maybe leaving your running shoes next to your bed causes you anxiety, but agreeing to meet a friend for a jog gets you outside with ease.
Reflect on what is effective for you and drop or adjust what isn’t. Remembering “why” you are doing this can help you rekindle your motivation or realize that your goals are changing.
Keep in mind that adjustments you make might also be less effective for you. So, again, self-evaluating can show you whether or not a new strategy is worth keeping.
Break goals down into manageable parts
Being ambitious is great, but it can also be a recipe for failure. If your goal is to do yoga three times per week, first aim to practice once or twice per week. This is much more achievable and can help you build momentum as you see incremental gains.
You may need to set and reach several smaller goals to get to where you ultimately want to be. Try to avoid “all or nothing” thinking. Perhaps tomorrow you get busy and don’t have time for your half-hour run. Instead of breaking your routine, get out for five, ten, or even just a few minutes - whatever you can fir it.
Focus on one major goal
Dialing your efforts in on one important goal can be the boost you need to turn intention into action. Once you’ve made progress in this area, the results will motivate you to work on other habits. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you aren’t getting anywhere when you focus on too many things at once.
When you are self-evaluating your goals and prioritizing them, you may realize that you need to scale some of them back. Sometimes certain goals need to be set aside for a certain time to allow progress in other areas. When you get stronger in one habit, you build resiliency to take into other parts of your life.
Make sure to end every self-evaluation by congratulating yourself on how well you’ve done so far. Reflect on how this ties into your “why” or motivation, and then set your sights ahead.
Lastly, do at least one small thing per day. If you don’t have the time to do your regular workout, do part of it instead or find another activity to do in its place.
For more on motivation, check out our article Motivation - The Fire or the Fuel?.