Time for a Progress Check!

Tip of the Week: When embarking on a program for change, periodically assess your progress. If you are on track and pleased with your progression, continue with your present program and schedule progress checks as needed. If, however, you have been unable to make any progress toward your goal, try to decipher the reason for your lack of progress. Be honest with yourself. Is there a lack of commitment on your part? Have you over-extended yourself—too many commitments and too little time? Did you set an unrealistic goal?

Once you’ve determined the reason for your lack of progress, evaluate whether the roadblock can be overcome at this time or whether your original goal needs to be altered. Then revise your plan as needed and schedule future progress checks.

How to Incorporate This Tip Into Your Lifestyle: Many of us find that when we are ready to make changes in our lives, we want to seize the moment—do it all and all at once! Unfortunately, most of us have also have experienced that predicable cycle where unrealistic expectations lead to subsequent burnout.

Pacing the change process and setting realistic goals couple to provide a solid foundation for successful change. The periodic progress checks help keep us on track and stave off burnout or indifference.

If change is difficult for you (and it is for most of us) it might be helpful to identify a list of personal rewards to motivate you to continue in pursuit of your goal. Whether your motivation is a luxurious massage, a new tennis racket, extra hours spent reading, perusing the Internet, or buying a new pair of shoes (each of us is energized by different things) use these rewards to acknowledge your progress!

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It’s Spring—a time for fresh beginnings, re-dedication, and re-commitment!

The mission of this site is to educate visitors in the realm of life extension and enhancement. Those who have been visiting this site since its introduction will recall the challenge posed to you in the first article—to commit to change but to do so at a gradual and steady pace. To each of you who accepted the challenge, it’s time for a progress check.

Why is a progress check necessary? It’s been three months since the inception of this site, and many experts suggest that 8 weeks is the magic number needed for integrating change into one’s life. By now many of you who have been working steadily on your goal should see some evidence that the desired change is either already ingrained, or is well on the way to becoming enmeshed into your daily routine.

If your progress has been static, refer to the suggestions listed above in “How to Incorporate This Tip Into Your Lifestyle”. If commitment is standing in the way of your success in reaching this goal, perhaps it’s not the goal that’s the issue—perhaps it’s commitment itself. (If so, that’s a whole other issue beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that there are numerous resources available to help deal with commitment issues.)

If it’s a matter of poor timing—you’re not motivated to make this change. . . or perhaps you already have too much on your plate, then postponement is an option. However, before you decide to postpone, you might find it advantageous to reconsider your options. How important is your health to you? Where does it rank on your list of priorities? Only you can make that determination for yourself!

Another roadblock, one of the most common that we encounter, is unrealistic goal setting. When we set goals for ourselves that are almost impossible to reach (due to time constraints, etc.) we set ourselves up for failure. Smaller, realistic goals may seem almost insignificant when measured against loftier ones; however, 3 months down the road, the realistic goal is more likely to have been met while the loftier ones have long been forgotten! (Moral of the story—a small step forward is better than no step at all!)

If you’ve made progress on your goal—congratulations! If this new change has become a permanent part of your life, some of you might want to move on to another goal. Others might decide to take a well-deserved break prior to tackling another goal. Whatever you decide, be sure to reward yourself for a job well done.

For those of you whose progress is less than you had hoped, identify that roadblock. Then do what you can to either remove it or get past it. Change is within your reach, but the path might not be as direct as you had hoped. Hang in there. We wish you well.