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Review your progress – Live A Great Life Podcast by Dr Prem – Chapter. 48

Review your progress - Live A Great Life Podcast by Dr Prem – Chapter. 48


Here is a quote – Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.’

—Leonardo da Vinci

A strategy that is devoid of periodic reviews resembles the state of a motorist who is driving on a lonely path, sans any idea of the distance they have made, and the time required to reach his destination. They may reach their destination eventually but only if their fortune favors them. Speaking of their experience, it would probably be nothing short of a nightmare.

The experience will be more congenial if he stops at some point to review his path and takes help from knowledgeable people as he continues with his journey. In this way, he will be forewarned of the challenges that he may encounter as he drives and be mentally prepared to meet them.

Every goal differs from the other in terms of the nature and time required to accomplish the same. Some goals by their very nature take days or months to attain, while others may stretch up to years, decades or, for that matter, even a generation. The quantum of time required to accomplish long-term goals may result in low motivation levels, procrastination and eventually abandoning it midway.

Remember, you are as accountable for every action that you take as you are for every inaction on your part to yourself more than to anybody else. Therefore, chunking your life purpose and reviewing your progress periodically may serve your purpose when you are out to achieve your life purpose.

Reviewing helps in monitoring progress

Determining your current position and comparing it with your starting point will enable you to ascertain whether you are progressing in life or simply going around in circles. With respect to your current status, it will become crystal clear whether you are where you expected to be while strategizing or whether you are lagging behind or even a notch ahead. Deadlines create and maintain momentum and compromising on them means retarding that thrust. With periodic reviews, you can analyze the reasons for your lethargic progress, and take prompt corrective measures.

Usually, goals are set largely, if not solely, because of the problems or conditions prevailing at a point of time in our life. Since change is a law of nature, the relevance of your life purpose is also susceptible to change. Reviewing your progress at predetermined intervals enables you to ascertain the relevance of your life purpose in your current position and foresee the same in the times to come. If necessary, you can change the direction of the path that you have been pursuing or for that matter alter your life purpose itself. Based on the experience and knowledge that you have gained in reaching your current position, you will be able to devise new and effective strategies to tackle the challenges that are bound to occur in the near future.

Reviewing helps in determining the available resources

With a prudent measure of our resources that may include – but are not limited to – money, time, information and support, we can predict whether these are enough to propel us towards achieving our life purpose or whether they require midway replenishment. This implies that we can plan to gather additional resources at any stage of the journey. Considering the fact that our success and failure invariably rely upon the availability and non-availability of these resources, evaluating them is of utmost importance. Therefore, ensure that your action plan is flexible enough to accommodate changes where necessary. However, you should refrain from changing your action plan too often, as it can shift your focus from your life purpose and render it irrelevant at times.

Seinfeld method for reviewing your progress

If you are apprehensive about how to review your life purpose, you need not worry as myriad methods are available. The Seinfeld method42, christened after comic actor Jerry Seinfeld, is one such method to review your progress on daily basis. Known for maintaining a consistent pace of improvement, this method focuses on creating and adhering to a daily habit of reviewing one’s goals. For this, maintain a calendar where you check off each day when you have successfully achieved your daily goal. You have to stick to the routine until and unless you have checked off a series of days. This method reflects the consistency of an individual in achieving his life purpose and encourages him to analyze reasons that prevented him from accomplishing goals on certain days.

To keep track of the weekly progress, you can rely upon the Y Combinator’s weekly dinners43 as a reference point. The founders involved in YC’s batch make it a point to converge over dinner once a week to share and evaluate their progress from the past week and discuss the obstacles they faced. They seek advice from an eminent person on overcoming issues that they are or can be vulnerable to in the future.

No wonder, this type of interaction is highly rewarding in terms of motivation, clarifying doubts and impeccable planning. You, too, can recreate the interaction with your friends, colleagues or family members in an informal ambiance and reap its multifarious benefits.

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