Measure Your Personal Growth

You're growing as a person and to tell that you want to track your progress. The first and hardest step is deciding to take action. People have different values and end goals, it's important that you decide what your personal preference is. Look at and assess the areas of your life that you want to improve, then you can set specific goals to help you get the growth that you want. While you're working towards those goals it's important to check in and make sure you’re on the right track and staying consistent.

To make a change you have to know what it is you want to change. That way you know what you are working toward, can set goals, and then efficiently track your progress. Reflect on the things that are most important to you. Using a journal (I liked this one, but it can be as simple or fancy as you want) or an electronic notebook, write down what you feel is important to you as an individual. If you’re having trouble identifying your core values, check out my post here. It will most definitely get you going in the right direction. If you’re still having trouble or want to go deeper think about the people in your life that you admire, then identify which of their qualities are important to you. Maybe that’s a quality you want to develop in yourself.

Now that you figured out what is important to your life you can decide what you want to change and where you can improve. Don’t rush this process or lie to yourself. Look at how you are doing and what feels unsatisfactory in your life, take the time to honestly reflect. This may be hard to do, so if you have someone in your life that you can trust spend a moment with them looking at your strengths, weaknesses, and priorities. Be cautious if you take this step, you’re trying to be the best version of yourself that you can be not the best version of yourself that someone else wants.

Start taking steps toward your goals and make a plan of action. Take a look at your life and identify the things that could or are preventing you from changing. Determine what is holding you back in the areas you want to improve. There may be some changes you can make for yourself to achieve your goals, but sometimes there are unavoidable circumstances that could make reaching your goals harder. Maybe you’re low on time, write out your schedule and examine the areas of your life where you can drop an activity or obligation, or at least put it on the back burner. It could be as simple as adjusting your mindset. You think that you can’t do something or it won’t work, but why do you think that? Analyze your thoughts, see if there’s truth behind them, and take the necessary steps to make them false.

You’ve decided on the areas of your life that you need to change, what you need to do to pursue them, now it’s time to set goals. Choose one or two specific areas of your life that you want to change at a time. Your goals don’t have to be large or extravagant, it's okay to have smaller and simpler goals. To prevent being overwhelmed set S.M.A.R.T goals ( download my worksheet here). SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Break your bigger goals down into smaller goals, that way you can consistently chip away at it and avoid stress.

Prioritize your goals, have the main goal and a sub-goal to help keep yourself on track. We already discussed that trying to do too much to fast can lead to you being overwhelmed. Create a list of everything you want to do and rank them from most important to least important, then for each of those goals create a list of things you have to accomplish and rank them from most important to least important, continue with this until you have a clear list of what is important to you and what are the important steps for you to get there. Dedicate most of your time and energy to the goals with higher importance. The most important sub-goals are going to be the ones that are keeping you from or going to help you reach your main goal. You must have a solid foundation to build on. Then after meeting those sub-goals, you can continue to the next goal until your main goal is reached.

You know what you want to change and you know what it is going to take for you to change, now keep track of your progress and measure your growth. As you work toward your goal, write down everything you complete. Don’t just have a to-do list, in the same journal from step one Write down all the completed tasks from your to-do list in one big list. Depending on how big your goal is and how many sub-goals you have done this weekly or monthly. You can also record your hopes, fears, and emotions relating to your growth and how you're feeling as you work towards your main goal. If it's easier or more convenient for you, use an app to help keep you on the right track. Some popular goal setting and tracking apps are Dailyio, Coach Me, Habitify, and HabitBull. Goal setting apps can give you reminders and help you measure your progress, they help time management and keeping up with everything you’ve done along the way. Find an app you like to keep you on schedule for completing your goals.

Celebrate your success. Reward yourself for your accomplishments, recognize your progress, and give yourself an incentive to keep up the good work. In the end, it’ll all pay off because you’ve completed your goals and are living the life you want to, but until then allow yourself a reward for taking the smaller steps.

There will be setbacks and slip-ups but that’s okay. Be kind to yourself, its natural when you’re working on growth in any area of your life and its a normal, unavoidable part of the process. When something doesn’t go how you plan to allow yourself a moment to deal with your emotions, but don’t dwell for too long. Feel, reflect, then keep going. If you start to feel discouraged remember why you're doing what you’re doing and look back at all the progress you’ve made so far.

While on your journey review the list of values and goals you started with. Take a moment to see if your goals still align with your values, ask yourself if it's something you still want. Over time our needs and priorities may change, which is perfectly normal. Remember, it's okay to change your mind about what you want and adjust your priorities. The whole purpose of this is for you to become the true version of yourself and if you’re not happy change directions.

From time to time assess if you’re where you wanted to or expected to be by now. Look at the progress you’ve made on your smaller individual goals. Do you like what you see? Ask yourself if this is where you wanted to or expected to be by now. Are you satisfied with what you see and if not think about what you could do differently. Do your goals need to be more specific or do you need to make them more realistic? While evaluating your goals try to see the bigger picture instead of just focusing on your most recent progress or setbacks.

For certain areas of growth, it can be measured using numbers and statistics. Make a chart or graph with your data to see how you're doing and to visualize your growth over time.

Depending on your goal, when you're ready to move on to your next big goal, or feel like something is lacking make another list of areas where you still need to change or grow. If you feel like it's needed either change your approach, modify the goals, or set new goals.

If you have someone who can support your growth journey without trying to change you for their gain, get an outside perspective. Sometimes it can be hard to objectively measure personal growth, especially if you have a hard time identifying your strengths, weaknesses, or the progress you’ve made so far. Along your journey let them know what you're trying to accomplish. You won’t just have someone to provide you insight about your growth changes and progress that you may have missed, you’ll also have someone who can support you along the way and hold you accountable. If you don't have anyone in your personal life you can turn to for help tracking your progress you can always work with a professional. Some goals work better with professional help.

Tracking your progress doesn’t have to be a big production. Right now I'm pursuing a lot of things and stay kind of busy. I don't have as much time to journal, but I still want to keep up with how I'm doing and stay on track. Every Sunday evening I do a two-page spread in my journal. If you want to try it out get the worksheet here. I start with two categories, one being the things that I did get done during the week and the other being tasks that didn’t get completed for whatever reason. I do a quick reflection of how my week went, what went well, and what I need to change. On the right side of the page, I write down the things that I have to do in the coming week. I decide on one small thing I can do to improve all the areas of my life (intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical, and career), I decide on a related quote, and then I pick out some affirmations to help manifest and accomplish the goals I have set for the week. That way I can see what areas I need to work on and plan accordingly.