With March ending this week, 2019 is basically a quarter of the way complete. Right around this time millions of workers are reviewing their targets and setting new goals for the upcoming quarter.
I’m no different, each quarter I set and seek to achieve my goals. I’ve been doing this in my job for years now, but in the past year I started to keep much better track of the goals I set for myself.
This week I urge you to review the past 3 months – the first quarter of 2019 – and consider the lessons learned in order to apply them to the next 3 months.
If you wrote down goals or habits at the beginning of the year that you wanted to track, look those up this week and ask the following questions:
- Have I made progress on the goals or habits I set at the beginning of the year? Why or why not?
- If not, did something occur that I didn’t expect? Or did I make the initial decision with wrong or incomplete information?
- What went well? Is there a way I can do more of that?
- What could I do less of that’s not adding to my life, even in a small way?
- Is there something or someone in my daily environment that blocks my progress? If so, can I change it in some small way?
You’ll probably have lots of your own questions, or additional ones that come from the five prompts I listed above. What’s important is to consider the last three months and how you’re progressing down the path.
If you need help reviewing the past quarter and setting goals for the next one, I have a video for that!
The reason writing down your goals and progress is important is because it takes (some of) the emotion and judgment out of the process. You can visibly see what you’ve been doing (or not) and decide how you feel about it.
Speaking from experience, I tend to be really hard on myself in the moment – always thinking I could have done more. But when I look back at the past few months and see everything I did accomplish, I feel good about my effort and the progress I made.
With that in mind I highly recommend taking a chunk of time this week to review Q1. Ask the questions, record the answers, and think about where you want to place your time and energy for the next three months.
No matter what your situation in life, you can claim at least one thing to own and pursue excellence in. Where you start the pursuit matters not, simply that you are striving.
I’ll be out on the path with you, happy trails!