Track Some Things Every Day to Mark Your Progress

Everyone is competitive by nature. We love to win. We love to do better than others. We feel pride if we are better than we were yesterday. We feel pride if we can look back and see how far we have come. Yes, progress builds self-esteem and confidence and is mood uplifting.

Being better today than you were yesterday has to make you feel good. If you tracked several things and improved in each one you would be getting several dopamine perks. Competing with yourself builds discipline. You can’t get better if you don’t put in some effort. If you put in your best effort every day, you can’t help but progress. Progress builds enthusiasm.

Tracking Becomes a Habit

Tracking keeps you on track. I track many things. I track my weight. Each morning I weigh myself. I always want to get lighter. Weighing in motivates me to eat consciously and healthy for the day to try and be lighter the next day.

One key habit creates a series of other good habits. I know drinking alcohol is not good for losing weight. I know eating the special mouth watering donuts made by a specialty store near me is not a good idea. Bad snacks are a bad habit. Soda is one more sugar I shouldn’t imbibe. I know exercise is important to burn calories. Sleep is very important to lose weight and not trigger bad eating habits.

So with my weight as one marker I track, I then track my exercise which supports the first key habit. I like to exercise each day and then let’s say I know I need to if I want to weigh less tomorrow. I track the distance and time of my bike rides. I want to be a better bike rider so I think about how to ride further and longer.

I like to walk but including hills is better conditioning. At the beach, there is a strand below the main street and lots of different staircases to get up to the main street. I walk the staircases 6 to 9 times and look to improve how many times I do it. I keep track and think about doing more when I set out. I write down each exercise achieved in my daily calendar. I mark my climbs and my bike rides.

Keeping Track of the Important Things

I want to be a better writer and have more influence so I write every day and keep track of the readers. I am marking my progress and know better writing gathers more attention. I also join more Linked In groups to reach more people. I get feedback and enjoy the new contacts.

Making money is certainly a way to keep create financial progress. It is easy to keep those records. I set a goal of how much I want to have left at the end of the year. Therefore, I am conscious of what I spend and invest. Keeping what I will have left makes me conscious of the flow of income and expenses.

Tracking marks your progress but is also your motivation to engage. You want to improve and so you need consistent effort. Your effort has to increase to make improvement. But as you consistently engage you naturally get better. Now you are moving from beginner to expert. As you improve, your enthusiasm increases. This is how we develop passions.

As you improve to a certain level you begin entering flow in each engagement. Flow is a state of bliss that is addicting. Now you no longer need motivation to engage, you can’t wait to engage. Flow brings peak performances. Now you are recording continuous progress. You can look back day to day, month to month, or year to year.

I have always enjoyed writing. I started with blogging daily and then moved to also writing books daily. After 24 books, I can look back and see how far I have come. I get into flow when I write so I don’t need motivation and I automatically create the time block each day to engage. It becomes a priority.

The more things you track, the more things will become passions for you and the better you will become at each. If you have days filled with passionate activities imagine how you feel about those days. I like to look at each day and say that was a good day. I recount the things that made the day so great. I happen to throw in several periods of relaxation which might be reading or listening to music. Each day includes getting outside and I like to be moving when I am outside.

Because getting outside and moving is important, I plan when I will get to do this each day. In this sense I am keeping track of something I love and make the time to engage. I meditate each morning and look forward to it. My morning schedule always includes meditating and I am up at 6 a.m. so that I do have time each day. So I am focused on when I go to sleep and when I wake up so that I can include all the activities that are important to me.

So right there I am keeping track of when it is bedtime to wind down what I am doing so I can do what I want the next. day. Tracking becomes a great way to do everything we want in a day, make progress, feel good about how we are conducting our lives, and therefore feeling purposeful and understanding who we are.

Read More

Emotions Are A Weapon Not A Hindrance

You Are in Charge of How Others See You

Thriving in the Tough Times

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