How Tracking and using your personal data can help you achieve your goals!
By Keanna Marquez
Are you serious about your goal(s)? Do you have a goal that you want/ need to reach in a specific time period? Are you struggling to make progress towards your current goal(s)? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, then this blog is for you!
I’m sure there are a variety of reasons why you haven’t made ideal progress towards your goal(s) yet: not enough time or energy, lack of confidence and/ or motivation, lack of consistency and/ or discipline, etc.
We’ll, what if I told you that tracking and using your personal data could help with all of these struggles? In my book, Your Life in Numbers, I teach you how you can use your personal data to help you create more time and energy for yourself and in this blog, I’ll teach you how it can help with the rest!
Start by thinking of the goal you want to accomplish and possible data that you could track to ensure progress.
For example, if your goal is to lose weight, then your daily data could be your calorie intake and whether or not you worked out. If your goal is to run a marathon in a few months then you can track how many miles you run each day.
For me, my goal is to drink a gallon of water everyday, so I track how many ounces of water I drink throughout the day, knowing that a gallon of water is 128 ounces. Then, based on the data that I chose to track, I created a customized data spreadsheet where I can track and log my progress. See below:
It’s a simple little tracker, but it’s such a helpful tool in ensuring that I reach my water-intake goal everyday! It was easy to create, it’s easy to use, and it helps hold me accountable! You can create these spreadsheets and track this data in a variety of places. I recommend using: Excel, GoogleSheets (which is what I use and it’s free), or Numbers, by Apple.
The Ultimate Accountability Partner!
Remember earlier, we asked you to think of your goal and possible data you could track to help hold you accountable? Well, the data that you chose to track is going to serve as your new accountability partner while you work on this goal of yours!
“An accountability partner is someone who supports another person to keep a commitment or maintain progress on a desired goal. They will often be a trusted friend or acquaintance who will regularly ask an individual about their progress.”
Instead of your accountability partner being, “a trusted friend or acquaintance,” it’s going to be your spreadsheets and your personal data that is going to help hold you accountable, which is actually a lot more helpful and beneficial. With an accountability person or friend, you’re likely to check in with them once or twice a week, if that, but with your data spreadsheets you’ll be checking in all day everyday in order to report your progress! And unlike a friend or personal acquaintance, your data will NOT sugar coat things for you! It will tell you the straight-up truth of whether or not you’re making any progress! And this is the type of brutal reality you need if you really want to reach your goals!!!
Your new accountability partner will: remind you of the daily tasks you must perform in order to achieve your goals, help you track your progress to ensure you’re doing enough/ on track to meet your goal, and will push, motivate, and encourage you to keep taking action towards your goals!
And just like that, all of your problems from earlier: lack of confidence and/ or motivation, lack of consistency and/ or discipline, have been solved! With this new accountability tool, you’re more likely to achieve your goals in your allotted time frame!
Time to take action!
- Think about the goal you want to accomplish and in what timeframe.
- Think of daily data that you can track/ log that will help hold you accountable.
- Choose and open up a blank spreadsheet in GoogleSheets, Excel, or Numbers.
- Create your new spreadsheet according to the data you chose to log (use my example from above or below).
- Start tracking and using your personal data to help you achieve your goals!
Below is a screenshot of what my spreadsheets look like. I have a variety of goals/ healthy habits that I track so you’ll see my water tracker and my accountability tools asking me if I’ve read and exercised for the day and “who I’ve loved,” to encourage me to go above and beyond for the people around me!
Notice the months along the bottom, that’s where your timeline comes in. Want to reach your goal in a week, month, or year? Depending on your timeline, that’s how long you should craft your spreadsheet for.
Don’t feel equipped to create these spreadsheets yourself? No worries, we can help you here: https://happytracking.online/ready-to-reach-your-goals/
Until then, happy tracking!
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