How to Track Your Personal Growth | Brian Tracy

Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and today I want to talk to you about tracking your personal growth. The number one quality for success today is flexibility. Trying new and different things as the world around you changes. No matter what makes you happy in life, the journey is often just as important as the destination. But the journey could easily get overwhelming. And if you don't have a clear set of goals and a clear way to track your progress, knowing how to track your personal growth can not only prevent you from getting discouraged, but also help you reward your progress and motivate yourself to bigger and bigger things. And here's why. Personal goals are more important now than ever before. If you've been with me for any period of time, you know that people who set goals earn on average 10 times as much money and are 10 times more successful than people who don't set goals. But how do you get started on your goal setting journey? Walt Disney was fond of saying the best way to get started is to quit talking and start doing. And I certainly agree. But if you set off on your journey without developing a clear goal, you're just as likely to end up frustrated and burnt out as to end up fulfilled and successful. If you want to make a change in your life, especially in today's uncertain times, you need to have smart goals. Smart goals, S, M, A, R, T are here. The first S letter is specific. It must be clear and concise instead of generalized or ambiguous. Now the greater clarity you have of each step of the goals that you want to achieve, the more likely you are to be successful. As we say, the figure is about 10 times more likely if you just write it down. Just write it down. The second letter in smart S is specific. Second letter is measurable. Be able to track your goals so that you can determine if you're making progress. The ability to measure your goals is One of the three most important qualities for business success identified in a 22 year study conducted by Oxford University. They found that people had clear goals and then they had measurable standards. And they're always measuring their progress against the goal. The third letter in Smart SMA is achievable. Your goals must be challenging, yet able to be accomplished so that you don't get discouraged. One of the dumbest things that I hear is people come up to me and say, I've set my goal and I want to be a millionaire in one year. Some people even told me they want to be a billionaire in one year. I say, well, why don't you try to be a thousandaire in one Year. How much money do you have now? Well, I don't have any money now. Well, what are you working at? Well, I just lost my job for the third or fourth or 10th time. So you're unemployed and you're broke and you want to be a millionaire in one year. It's very important that your goal be achievable. It be something that you can see, but you have to stretch for it. If it's too big and you try to work on it, you'll become discouraged and you'll give up. So the fourth word in smart smar is relevant. Your goal must be aligned with your overall plans and your other goals in life. In other words, it must be doing something that you care about and that you like and that you enjoy and it fits together with everything else. And finally, your goal must be time bounded. S M A R T time bounded. It must be attached to a finish line that's realistic and yet challenging. So once you have set your smart goals, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bounded, you'll want to follow a plan that will help you to achieve them. Now it's time to follow these five steps to track your goals for personal growth to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving everything you strive for. So here are my five best steps for tracking your personal goals. First, set a date that's ambitious but achievable. It makes you stretch, but it's believable. Start by estimating how long it will take you to achieve your goal if everything goes 100% as planned. And write down your specific end date. Now ask yourself, do I need to give myself time to allow for bumps along the road? Or should I be extra ambitious and push myself to achieve this goal even faster? Only you will know the answer to this question. But if you decide to push yourself, don't set a timeline that's totally unrealistic. If you miss your deadline, you'll end up feeling discouraged, and that could impact your ability to achieve your goal in the long run. Now, second step is develop milestones that you'll need to hit in order to achieve your goal so you will know where you are relative to your goal. Identify the smaller, achievable steps that are necessary to reach your larger goal. Checking off milestones reached will motivate you to hit the next milestone until your goal is accomplished. By developing milestones, you you'll also be able to look back and easily reflect on what parts of your journey were easy and where you'll need to focus a bit more time and energy the next time around. Third, determine how you'll track your goals. Writing down your progress is vital. People who write down their goals and write down their progress are internally motivated to do more and more. And of those things that are necessary for success, writing down your progress is vital. Will you use Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets or a spiral notebook and pages? A project management tool like Asana or my personal favorite is a simple pen and paper. So no matter what choice you make, stay consistent. Writing down your goals is the single best action you can take to encourage your success. In fact, I attribute a lot of my life success to the moment when I decided to start writing down my goals each and every day. This process changed my life and I know it can do the same for you. Here's the key. When you write down your goals, write them down in the present tense as though you have already achieved them is I earn X number of dollars by this date. So say it as though it's already a fact and your subconscious mind will register it as a command and will start to give you ideas and motivation and incentives to move faster towards your goal and see your goal moving faster toward you. Next, set a specific time to check in on your progress. Think of it as an important business meeting and don't miss it. Ever. Finally, don't beat yourself up if you fall behind or miss a benchmark. The very fact that you're doing it and working towards your goal is really important. You'll have to be adaptable, but be sure to keep yourself accountable. The number one quality for success today is flexibility, trying new and different things as the world around you changes, which it does faster today than ever before in history. So when you have a system in place to stay accountable to your goals, you're much more likely to achieve them. Remember, when I start off my seminars, I say, what is the highest paid work that you do? What is the highest paid work that you do? And I will let people throw out ideas and I'll say the answer is thinking. Thinking is the most important skill you have. Stopping and taking the time to think clearly about where you are and where you're going will give you a greater payoff than anything else that you can do. This often means involving someone else in your journey toward personal progress and celebrating your achievements. Consider these three key tips for holding yourself accountable in your goal setting. First, find accountability partners to share your goal with so that they can help you stay on track by motivating you to reach your milestones and celebrating with you as you accomplish them. Second, Set rewards for achieving milestones, such as a day off, a special outing with your family, or a new book to read. Whatever will help motivate you personally to achieve the steps towards your goal. And number three is you can also share your progress on social media or with your friends and family to help you stay accountable by publicly recording or sharing with those important to you how you're progressing towards your milestones. Finally, learn to set your next personal goal. Achieving your goals will bring you happiness and an ultimate sense of accomplishment in your life. Achieving a goal motivates you to set bigger goals. A very wise man told me many years ago is that when you achieve a goal, you set a template or a pattern in your brain that motivates you to achieve ever bigger goals. So whatever goal you set, you'll be motivated to set a goal that's even larger. And when you achieve that goal, you'll achieve a goal that's even larger. And you just keep setting larger and larger goals. You want to be a millionaire? As I said, become a thousandaire. Have a thousand dollars in the bank, then a 10,000 heir and then a 50,000 heir and just keep building and building and building and in a few years you'll have more money than you ever imagined possible. To help make setting your goals as simple as possible, I've developed my free 14 step goal setting Guide. This guide is for any goal that you might have, whether large or small, and will help you to know exactly what to do to achieve that goal. And keep in mind that once you've achieved your goal, it's important to start thinking about the next goal. Life is about progress and progress equals happiness. And when you feel yourself moving forward, you're just happy all the time. Now I'd love to hear from you. So my question for you today is this. How can you track your personal growth? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Now we're talking about personal growth, personal success, personal progress. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your future, take action. And take action now. If you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in teaching you about goal setting, subscribe to my channel like this video and share this video with your friends. Don't forget to click the button on the screen for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.