How do you explore your values, set personal goals, and track your progress?

JKG·Aug 13, 2020

Posted in:Health & Wellness Personal Growth Productivity

Hi gang! I am big on personal development and setting habits and rituals to make progress and get results ---> I am curious to learn how you set personal goals, reflect on purpose, track progress in terms of habits/rituals etc - Do you do private journaling? Use a productivity app journal? Do the morning pages? What is missing from things like the 5 Minute Journal, the Best Self Journal or the existing products out there?Curious to know how the community furthers their personal aspirations perhaps o/s of work and professional life...

teresaman·Aug 13, 2020

My personal goals and reflections are always logged, as they come, in my Wordpress blog that I've made private and uncrawlable by search engines. It's a great way for me to write down my thoughts when I'm on the go or on the computer as I have the app on my phone.That said, they're a little all over the place in that I only log them as the thoughts come to mind, and I don't categorize them nor track the progress for each one. I suppose I see them as pretty philosophical, as the goals for mine this year is to "build a sense of home" and I end up reinforcing it by talking to friends and family about it.

JKGNYC·Aug 15, 2020

I love this! Yes there are goals that are philosophical and spiritual that “sit” with us I guess, that can’t be countrd

SGC85·Aug 13, 2020

Before the pandemic, habit stacking and established routines are the two main ways that help me develop and follow-through with my habits and goals. For example, I created a morning routine to get coffee and read books daily. This led to searching and keeping a list of books to read, and ultimately, tracking how many books and setting a realistic goal in GoodReads with the reading challenge -- last year, my goal was 52 books (1 book per week) and I was able to reach 46!In-app tracking for each of my specific habits worked well when they were tied to my previous routines and I made a lot of progress with (and maintained streaks for) meditation, learning a new language, reading and fitness (Calm, Duolingo, GoodReads, MindBody). With the pandemic, days start feeling the same and having all aspects of life inside my home have disrupted the strong habits I previously established. I live in SF and our re-opening has been delayed in the Bay Area. I struggled with keeping my habits and needed to find a new way to re-build and adapt an approach for the current circumstances and now use an app to track my progress for my daily/weekly health and wellness practices, e.g. meditation, yoga, drinking water etc. I like Done for its minimalist design, ease of use, and custom notifications for specific habits.I also recommend reading/listening to Atomic Habits by James Clear. It discusses ways to establish good habits and break bad habits through cues and habit-stacking. Audiobook 👌🏻

JKGNYC·Aug 15, 2020

So interesting! Love atomic habits! So you use an app - would you consider going analogue and using pen and paper?

Daempressky·Aug 14, 2020

I track mine in different ways but mainly writing them down. For financial goals I use spreadsheets and other goals I write them in a list that I add to when new desires come. I revisit the lists to read them and review them as often as I can. The spreadsheets have dates and notes columns to keep me accountable. I also have different accountability groups of people that I meet with for the purpose of reviewing immediate goals and intentions and actions taken. I know it sounds all over the place but it’s what works for me.

JKGNYC·Aug 15, 2020

I love the accountability group - I have that too! Do people show up regularly though? That’s been our issue of consistency

Daempressky·Aug 15, 2020

Yes they show up consistently. Especially now that we are all experiencing impacts of the pandemic. It helps to keep us focused and also connected to each other.

lsheehy·Aug 14, 2020

It's been tough giving myself grace regarding goals: we are literally in a pandemic. At the same time, it's not going away anytime soon and the pandemic has brought even more downtime. I do a monthly check-in in a written notebook (going on 10 years now) listing out health & wellness, lifestyle and long-term goals to re-orient my expectations for the month. While I rarely go back and check against, the task of writing down goals keeps them top-of-mind and provides a time for reflection.I managed to launch a quarantine project (yesterday!) which has been on my list since early 2019. Shameless plug: my newsletter wabisabiletter.substack.com is a short weekday science-backed health & wellness email. It's helped me focus on areas where I'm more passionate than just 9-5 life.

JKGNYC·Aug 15, 2020

Congrats on the project! So you go analogue - you write things down? I’m a big fan of the act of writing - I think there is neuroscience to back up that it’s more impactful for the brain

lsheehy·Aug 16, 2020

Yes analog! It also serves a duel purpose in mindfulness, taking pen to paper and unplugging for a bit to focus.

rachel·Aug 15, 2020

Hey @JKG, love this question! My wonderful friend Arsh Haque has spent the last few years building Wellsayer, a guided-journalling start-up that aims to tackle exactly this. Beta platform is here: https://www.wellsayer.com/Deck is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fla5-NshcXcdAkaq7QBy7E8tVhrRtxfE/view(Full disclosure: I have been working with them on this as a member of the first cohort of "thought leaders", who create & undertake a guided journalling process [for] themselves before sharing it on the platform for others to follow. If you're interested in learning more, I'd be more than happy to follow up in the coming months when the user-facing product comes out!)

JKGNYC·Aug 15, 2020

Thank you! So interesting! I’ve actually been using my own journaling format for several years now which is the curation and aggregation of my own study on what’s effective and amThinking of launching a kickstarter!