Picture this: You are in the car with your kids on your way for your annual Disney World trip. It was a struggle to get your kids into the car in one piece, but you are finally on your way…a 16-hour drive to fun times and many more memories for your family. You get onto the freeway and you are cruising along and all of a sudden you hit major traffic…Damn it! is what you are probably saying (along with other colorful words in your head, because you know how kids are with absorbing anything cuss words…) because you made sure to leave the house at a time when you wouldn’t hit traffic, and Google said the roads were wide open and clear!

So, you’re sitting in the traffic and driving along at a snail’s pace – 10Km/hr and you are an hour into your journey but not where you should be for the amount of time that you have been in your car driving! Then you start to hear a chorus of children breaking into the famous rendition of “Mom are we there yet?” This, my friend, is a feeling all too familiar not only when going on any kind of car trip with children who won’t fall asleep, but when you are on the journey to accomplishing your goals.

Knowing When You are Following the Right Plan

We all know that anything worth pursuing will always come with its own challenges and many nuggets of wisdom along the way. When you make the decision to pursue your goals, it becomes important for you to regularly check in to see how far you are with accomplishing the goal. Monitoring your progress is no different than monitoring how far or close you are to your desired destination on your GPS.

When you are regularly checking in with your progress it gives you great insight to see if you are on course to achieving the goals, but also to see where tweaks may be needed. I get it, you are so excited to get to the end goal, but at times you also feel so anxious to see the results today as opposed to how long it is going to take you. It’s okay to feel this way, but what I want you to focus on is the arriving at the end goal and enjoying everything while you are on your way!

When you regularly monitor your progress, you are able to see if the plan that you originally made still makes sense, or if tweaks are needed for the direction that you need to take. Using the example above, instead of taking the freeway and remaining in traffic, it may be faster for you to take some back roads that will allow you to bypass the traffic and remain on track to arrive at Disney World within the original time that you planned for.

Monitoring Your Money and Your Plans

Regular monitoring of your money and plans to achieve your goals will involve:

• Weekly money dates
• Daily review of your goals
• Tracking the time spent working on things to gauge your progress

Implementing weekly money dates really allows you to see how things are really progressing financially from week to week, but taking a more focused look at not just the amounts, but the actions that were made to achieve those final numbers. Money dates are more about your behavior and habits, more than it is about the money.

Big things are not the usual cause to derail us from our goals, it’s usually all the little things added over time that take us off course. The daily 3 pm visit to Starbucks where you get a coffee and something sweet to eat, which is costing you $4.50 per day Monday-Friday, adds up to $22.50 per week and $90 within a month…and that attempt at completing the 21 Day Sugar Detox is probably looking really attractive as you read this right now!

Taking the time to review what your goals daily help to keep you focused and intentional about the decisions and actions that you take every day because it will help to keep your accountable and aware.

And last but not least, tracking your time spent on what you do during the day lets you really see how productive how you use your time each day. When you track your time, you will be able to see where time is being wasted as you will see what are the activities that are either getting you closer to or further away from the goals that you want to achieve. I challenge you to complete a time audit on your day, by tracking every single thing that you do and the time that it took you to do it. You will be surprised at the opportunities that you will have to shift and eliminate things and tasks from your daily routine.

By performing these things consistently over time you will strengthen your resilience, and it will provide you with clarity so you can adapt and adjust to any changes, setbacks, and opportunities that come your way.

Adjusting Your Plan

Resilience and grit are the characteristics that help you to be aware and focused on getting you to achieve your goals. The benefit of consistently monitoring your plans is that it provides you with the necessary nudge and insights to make necessary changes to your plan to ensure that you can still achieve your goal. If you had goal to save $10,000 to invest in your business in 1 year, you would be tracking to see if you are hitting your monthly savings goals of $833.33, and if you were not hitting the goals, you would adjust your spending or take advantage of opportunities to increase your income so you can stay on track to make your savings goals.

If you are not monitoring your plans and your money on a consistent basis, then you open up the possibility of going off track with meeting your goals, which will mean that it may take you longer to achieve them.

Staying Focused, Aware and Flexible to Changes

When you take the time to regularly monitor and adjust your goals, you will be able to see where your finish line is and how close you are to crossing the line. Sometimes staying the course to get to the end of the line can be demotivating, but with focusing on the end goal and knowing and accepting that challenges will come, you will be able to persevere and remain committed to accomplishing the goals – You will and can have what you desire.

Celebrating small wins should always be a part of your routine when you hit certain milestones on your way to achieving the bigger end goal. Just like you can’t drive for 16 hours non-stop to reach to Disney World because the car needs gas and you need to eat and do what humans do, you can’t take the approach of driving straight through non-stop with all of your goals. You must stop to smell the roses, appreciate how far you have come, and renew your focus and mind to proceeding along with your mission to accomplish your goals.

You will have all the feels, but by being in tune with what is happening with your goals you will be in a position of strength because you are taking full responsibility and accountability for getting the results that you want. Stay focused and strong, and remember that you can, you will and you must achieve your goals!

So tell me, what is your process for monitoring how you stay on track with achieving your money goals?