Why it’s so hard to remember what I accomplished in 2016.

Surprise, surprise! Another year is drawing to a close. If you’re like me you’re racking your brain wondering what you did for the past 365 days. What did you accomplish? How did you grow?

When these daunting questions come up we’re sure of only one thing; we were really busy. Busy is good right? Busy means productive? Well then, why are we drawing a blank? Why can’t we remember what we were “busy” doing?

Rummaging the mind for answers to these questions can leave us feeling as though we’ve lost big chunks of our year or we’re just simply under-accomplished.

Enter bright shiny band-aid.

You know it well. It’s the answer to all mankind’s end-of-year shortcomings, the New Year’s Resolution. The NYR is everyone’s easy fix to start the year with an epic promise that we’ll do better. Everyone makes them. Let’s face it. Who doesn’t want to grow?

Common sightings in the month of January:

The gym is filled with people going 0 to 100 real quick.

Your colleagues have switched from their regular Coke and Big Mac to a single stick of celery and a poop-coloured smoothie. 💩

Your friend Roger has buried himself in library books and a $200 Rosetta Stone subscription, steering haphazardly through a crash-course in the Italian language.

We all know what happens come February and March. The aspiring — Dwayne Johnsons — choose the couch over the running machine, your co-workers are back to super-sizing their fast food, and poor Roger can’t get past counting to dieci. The NYR gets the best of us, year after year. So yeah, everyone still makes them. Everyone knows that 92% of the time they end in swift and grand failure.

This epic fail, early in the year, encourages us to reject goal setting altogether. Now the cycle of despair continues as we look back and realize the only thing we have to show for the year is a bunch of filtered food pictures.

Instead of reaching for the shiny band-aid, let’s break the long-standing New Year’s resolution curse.

Goal-tracking. The simple. The necessary.

Developing the practice of goal-tracking ensures we’ll end 2017 with a detailed log of our self-growth and a clear path towards future goals.

Time to power up!

Thee three stages of goal tracking:

1. Challenge
2. Habit
3. Lifestyle

Goal-tracking as a challenge:

Toss out the yearly resolution and go day-to-day. Big or small, what is your one goal for today? Put pen to paper and commit to it. The most important part is to challenge yourself to take 1 minute out of your day to reflect on progress made. What did you do today to get closer to your goal? Ask this each day and you’ll be on your way to building a powerful habit.

Use Twitter as your accountability partner
Go for a run
Spend time with family
other

Goal tracking as a habit:

It’s been a few weeks since you started goal-tracking. You’ve managed to fill a couple pages in your notebook with scribbles about daily accomplishments. You’re now beginning to see how these snapshots build on each other helping to unlock bigger personal goals.

Photos are a fun and easy way to reflect on your accomplishments.

Goal tracking as a lifestyle:

The year is coming to an end and you now have a detailed progress report. You can see you took a 3D printing course in February, learnt how to make a mean steak in July, and visited Japan in September. You took charge and now 365 days lay before you in all their glory. Whether you set out to improve your personal relationships, get ahead at work, learn a new skill, or visit a new place, you can see exactly what you did to make progress on those goals. Give yourself a pat on the back for a productive fun-filled year. It’s time to gear up for another great year ahead.

TL;DR

Instead of setting yearly goals that often get missed, start reflecting on your daily progress. Start small and take a few minutes to reflect on what you did that moved you forward. Soon you’ll have a detailed log of accomplishments and the momentum to pursue bigger objectives. With goal tracking as a habit, you’ll end 2017 with crystal clear clarity on how much you’ve grown and where you’re heading.

At objectiveIQ, we’re building a simple tool that makes tracking goals as easy as taking a picture.

Use your phone’s camera to quickly track and reflect on daily progress.

Capture and organize important progress using the Chrome extension.

Accomplish ambitious personal and professional goals with friends and colleagues.

I’d love to hear what you think. Get your free invite at www.objectiveIQ.com

Wishing you a fun and productive 2017 🎉