100% Jodi: How to Create Milestones & Metrics to Measure Progress

Happy New Year!! I hope it is going great for you thus far. There has been so much energy and excitement around 2018 and what’s possible I can’t help but feel this is going to be a great year. And it’s all within our power, right?

I’ve also been feeling the momentum as I am running the Tolerations Detox Challenge. Ultimately, 112 people have registered and as of the day this episode is released we are on Day 8 of 10. And as I expected people are reporting feeling more empowered, more energy, momentum and enthusiasm for their goals, the coming year and life in general.

Most of the activity has been playing out in the private Facebook group so if you a woman (sorry guys) and you have not joined us yet go to https://womentakingthelead.com/group to join the conversation and get support from other go-getting women just like you.

Okay, in the last 100% Jodi episode that came out a couple weeks ago I shared a process to create goals that are worthy of you. Near the end of that episode I touched upon creating the milestones and metrics of each goal but having listened back on that episode I realized I didn’t give those topics their due.

Since I am in the process of creating the milestones and metrics for the focus areas I’ve chosen it made perfect sense to continue this series on goal setting and in the next 100% Jodi episode I have the final piece that will bring all this together.

Choose a Goal that Represents Success for You

So for this to all make sense I’ll share with you what I’ve been doing with my focus areas. Since focus areas are not always specific you need to choose a goal that represents success in the focus areas you have chosen. I’ll cover the focus areas I chose in the original episode on creating goals that are worthy of you and then I’ll share what I chose as a specific goal and we can use these to get into metrics and milestones.

Here are my focus areas and the goal I chose to indicate what success would look like for me in this area.

1. Build more strength and endurance.

Goal: do 300 Spartan-regulation burpees (belly and chest to the ground) in one session. Separately, do an unassisted pull-up.

2. Be in a relationship.

Goal: be in a committed (monogamous) romantic partnership with a man.

3. Increase profitability in my business.

Goal: have a net income (earnings minus expenses) of $80,000 minimum.

4. Do WTL branded local paid workshops

Goal: this morphed into doing a full-day event.

5. Outsource

Goal: (contingent upon profitability goal) outsource social media content creation and email inbox management.

Metrics to Gauge Progress

Metrics are measurements like dials on the dashboard. They are indicators of how you’re doing, tracking your progress toward goals. An example of a metric would be how many burbees I can do in one workout session. They would let me gauge where I am on a given day or week and allow me to track my progress. My clothing size is technically a metric, however, since my focus area is to increase strength and endurance going down a clothing size is nice yet irrelevant.

When determining the metrics for your goal you want to make sure they are relevant to the focus area and the goal you chose. Something that lets you know you’re making progress.

Now, for my goal to do an unassisted pull-up as a sign of success in building strength, dropping a few pounds may be a part of my strategy to achieve that goal. Essentially, my thinking is if I am a little lighter it will be easier to do an unassisted pull-up.

Some of you might be thinking that’s counter-intuitive because if I’m dropping weight I would be pulling less weight, thus undermining the amount of strength I can build. However, during the progression of a pull-up, from hanging from the bar to pulling your chin over the top of the bar, you transition through different muscles in your back, arms and shoulders. Being able to do the full progression of the pull-up is what I’m looking for and being a little lighter will make that easier.

Now, making a progress is awesome but as you know we can stretch progress on endlessly and take forever to finally hit our goals. This is why milestones are so helpful.

Milestones to Motivate Progress

Milestones make a plan to achieve a goal specific and concrete. They are the mini-goals you are looking to hit on your way to achieving the bigger goal. Milestones can be dates, deadlines, tasks, and budgets. Metrics will allow you to track progress all you want but if you don't have something specific you are looking to achieve and a date by which you want to achieve it, you can find yourself feeling like you’re not getting much traction toward your goal.

For my goal of doing 300 burbees in one workout session I’m going to start by seeing where I am now. I want to know how many burbees I can do before I just can’t do another burpee with good form. I haven’t done this yet but say I can do 50 burpees maintaining good form before I start to feel my back bowing as I come up from the ground while doing the push up. That means I have a gap of 250 burpees to hit my goal.

I also need to know by when I want to achieve this goal. If my goal is to do this by December 31 my milestones are going to be different than if my intention is to achieve this goal by June 30.

There’s no time like the present so I’m going to shoot for June 30. Based on the date I am releasing this episode and my guess that I can do 50 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form as of today that gives me a little less than 6 months to increase that number by 250.

January 31 – 100 February 28 – 150 March 31 – 200 April 30 – 250 May 31 – 300

Yes, you see that correctly. I am shooting to achieve my goal ahead of schedule to give myself some wiggle room in the last month for the unexpected. Always put some cushion in your plans for the unexpected.

This is where we high-achievers can get ourselves into trouble. We don’t account for the unexpected and they feel like complete failures if we didn’t achieve our goal according to the original plan. Remember to be a little bit flexible so you can pivot and tweak your plan if you need to. This is your goal and you get to decide how and when achieve it.

Other things to consider when making your plan: What other activities do you need to consider that will support your goal (i.e. core strength)? What other resources or support do you need to achieve your goal (education, coaching, personal trainer, etc.)? When will you review your metrics and milestones (I will do a burpee workout 1x per week)? When are you going to execute your plan (time-block your calendar!)?

If you don’t have metrics and milestones for your goals yet, no worries! Put some time on your calendar in the next week or two to get it done. This can be an eye-opening experience in that you may realize your goal was a bit unrealistic or you may realize it’s more easily achieved than you first thought.

I’ll be continuing to build out the plan to achieve my goals and would love to hear where you are in creating your goals and forming the plan. Let me know if there is anything I can do to support you. You can reach me at jodi@womentakingthelead.com or join the Facebook group and get some support there. Go to https://womentakingthelead.com/group to join us there and be a part of fun and supportive group of women just like you.

As always, I hope this was of value to you and here’s to your success!

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Resources

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