How to Evaluate Your Progress and Move Toward Your Goals Faster
How to Evaluate Your Progress and Move Toward Your Goals Faster
In the journey of self-improvement, setting goals is only half the equation—evaluating your progress is equally essential. Checking in with yourself not only boosts motivation but also brings clarity on what’s working and what needs adjusting. Here’s why it matters and how it can accelerate your journey to achieving your goals.
Why Evaluation Matters
Evaluation is more than just assessing results; it’s about understanding the steps you’re taking and their effectiveness. Regularly reviewing your progress can help you:
Identify Positive Patterns: Recognizing habits that work helps build momentum. Celebrating wins, no matter how small, reinforces the actions leading to progress.
Spot Areas for Improvement: Evaluation allows you to identify setbacks without self-judgement, offering the opportunity to adjust and grow.
Boost Self-Trust: Every time you reflect on what’s working, you affirm that your efforts are paying off, increasing your belief in your own abilities to make lasting change.
Evaluating helps us reflect on personal progress toward new outcomes
How to Evaluate Effectively
Start with three guiding questions to evaluate your weekly progress:
What’s going well?
In part one of the equation we take stock of what’s going well and what’s working as we take action towards our new desired result. Look at specific actions or thoughts that have moved you closer to your goal. Maybe you chose a healthy lunch option, exercised consistently, or maintained a positive outlook. We might ask ourselves questions like, did walking daily or setting boundaries at work bring more calm to our day? In session my client identified that choosing smaller meal portions left her feeling in control—a significant win for her.
What’s Not Working?
Here we Identify actions or habits that haven’t served us toward creating new desired outcomes. If we are working toward loosing weight and haven’t lost as much as we wanted to, we might discover as we journal our list of what’s not working that there were moments of unplanned eating or times when negative thoughts led to inaction. Evaluating without judgement is as essential as being completely honest with ourselves.
What Will I Do Differently?
Using insights from the first two questions we can plan for the week ahead. This step turns the challenges of what isn’t working into growth opportunities, helping us to adapt strategies for even greater progress.
Keep It Judgement-Free
The aim of this assignment is to look at what’s working and what isn’t without labelling actions as “good” or “bad.” Neutral evaluation helps reduce self-criticism and fosters curiosity, making it easier to learn and grow. Instead of thinking, “I shouldn’t have done that,” try given that this action didn’t work I wonder what I could try differently next time to give me a different outcome? Imagine you were making flapjack. We mix oats, butter, sugar and honey together. We know this works. However, when they cooled after baking we found they were the consistency of concrete, telling us that something hasn’t worked. In the last step of evaluating we decide that we could try baking them in the oven for less time. Doing just one thing differently will give us a different result. In this exercise we didn’t need to get mad with the flapjack or judge ourselves or the oven. We simply notice a possible error, suggest something to be done differently and course correct.
Track Small Wins and Adjust as Needed
Evaluating progress along the way often reveals small victories that we might otherwise overlook. These small wins are like fuel, keeping motivation high and providing a sense of accomplishment. Tracking them helps to reinforce positive behaviours and provides a record of how far you’ve come, encouraging you to keep moving forward.
Celebrate small goals as part of your self-reflection journey.
Repeat the Cycle
Growth is a continuous process. By evaluating progress regularly, we create a cycle of constant improvement. This ongoing feedback loop allows us to celebrate our successes, learn from setbacks, and adjust our actions in real-time, propelling us toward our goals with greater confidence and speed.
Incorporate these steps into your routine to make progress evaluation a powerful tool on your path to success. When you commit to evaluating with kindness and curiosity, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can reach your goals and create lasting change.
Ready to Begin Your Transformation?
Imagine a life where you feel aligned, free from negative cycles, and empowered in your choices. If this assignment outlined above speaks to you, why not take the first step today? Book a free discovery call, and let’s explore how coaching can help you reconnect with your true self and set you on a path toward the life you truly want.
