Whether you want to improve your personal finances, fitness performance, business performance, relationships, happiness, spiritual life or learning ability—it always works.
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I call myself a ‘progress fanatic.’ I’ve been striving for growth in every area of my life for the last 32 months. I discovered one shortcut to progress that was applicable in every venture I undertook: from improving my spiritual wellbeing via improving my son’s grades to building my writing business.
It is tracking.
“Show up is 80% of success” – Woody Allen
I’m not an SEO expert, and I don’t have time and resources to improve it.
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For the record: I don’t believe in progress if it’s not translated into daily discipline. If you don’t practice every day what you want to improve, you set yourself up for struggles and possibly, failure. This is the foundation from which you can build and grow; and it’s the approach I prescribe, which is: The more often you show up, the better. Once you have designed your discipline, and you at least try to do it every day, tracking comes into play.
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Tracking positions you as an expert
When you have some numbers to support your claims your content is perceived as ‘interesting stuff’ as opposed to the ‘interesting rambling’ the Internet is so full of. You don’t provide just opinions; you provide tangible data to tinker with. My blog’s traffic is quite low. I’m not an SEO expert, and I don’t have time and resources to improve it. In terms of daily visitors, it’s almost invisible in the worldwide Net. It is just my foothold on the Internet. However, when you search for Buck Books in Google with different keyword variations, my blog entries appear six times on the first two pages. My posts regarding Buck Books service are packed with numbers. I tracked not just my sales during Buck Books promotions; I tracked them months before and after the promos, and I smeared those data all across my posts.
Authors who find my posts are glued to them. They recognize me as a guy who knows what he speaks about.
Tracking vaccinates against frustration
We live in the instant gratification era. Your subconscious is immersed in this culture and firmly believes that you can achieve truly extraordinary results in no time and without breaking sweat. Tim Ferris can do it, why not you? But instant gratification is a myth and nothing worthwhile comes easy and fast. This cognitive dissonance creates a lot of tension and frustration.
Tracking knocks them out. In May 2015, I celebrated the 2nd anniversary of my career as an author. I was frustrated like the hamster in the ball that landed in the box of delicious seeds. I saw all of these successful authors out there (many of them were my close friends whose rise to the top I was able to observe firsthand) and I was nowhere close to where I wanted to be.
Then, I took the track record of my sales and revenues and shut down the frustration in no time. I started two years ago in a foreign language with zero experience, authority, and know-how. I have sold over 13,000 copies of my books. My revenues grew 1125% from 2013 to 2014 and 247% comparing just eight months of 2015 to the whole 2014.
When you are stuck in the rut, you don’t see your progress. I forgot long ago the times when I was selling a mere copy a day, but going through my data I recalled them and renewed my gratitude.
Tracking provides results
I only tracked the same exercises week after week and month after month.
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I’ve been tracking my daily word count since 26th of September 2013. It climbed steadily, but mostly because of the commitments I took: when I decided to write 400, 600, 800 and 1000 words a day. What I haven’t noticed till preparing for this article, was that my writing speed climbed steadily from 11.7 words per minute in October 2013 to 19.2 wpm in August 2015.
I tracked the use of my time for four weeks in 2013. This discipline resulted in the eruption of productivity which led me to write my time management bestseller.
I tracked my fitness performance. Since April 2013, I have broken my records over 80 times. I didn’t modify my exercise regime a bit. I only tracked the same exercises week after week and month after month. The most intriguing results of tracking I received at the beginning of 2013. At that time, I was trying to shed off the last six pounds of belly fat. I was diligently registering every crumb that came to my mouth… and I did nothing else. I didn’t change my diet. I didn’t change my exercise program. But I lost these stubborn 6 pounds.
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Whether you want to improve your personal finances, fitness performance, business performance, relationships, happiness, spiritual life or learning ability—it always works. If you want visible, measurable and steady progress commit to tracking your metrics.
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Photo: Flickr/ Javier