Sometimes we can get so busy doing things that we forget to check back to see how well we did them.
Recently, I was talking to an executive who was telling me how his team comes out of their meetings with so many action items that they could never really do them. This got me to thinking about my current project, 40 days to momentum.
What good is it to generate new actions if you don’t follow up to see how you did? So I thought I’d spend a little time writing today about how to effectively follow up on past efforts to see how you did with moving toward your goal.
- Look back over the past two weeks. Did you keep record of what you did? If you didn’t, start now. Write down your actions. What did you do, when did you do it?
- On a scale of 1-5, how successful were your actions? 1 being “not good”, 5 being “amazing.”
- Take all your low scoring actions and assess how you could revisit them with more effectiveness. Take all your high scoring action items and ask yourself, how can I celebrate the good that happened? Should I celebrate with a friend? My team? Alone? Or ask yourself how you can do more of what worked well.
- Start a gratitude journal. Take a moment to write about the things you are grateful for that have happened in the past two weeks. Doing this will generate positive energy and motivate you to keep going.
Rushing ahead to do more things will not be effective if you never circle back around to see how effective you’ve been. Start the practice today of putting a time in your calendar to reflect every week or two on the effectiveness of your work. Slowing down to do this now will make you faster in the end.
This is day 10 of an exercise I’m engaging in called, 40 days of action, how to generate momentum on your most important goals. If you’d like to read the original blog, click here. If you’d like to participate in 40 days of action, click here to email me.