Before we begin, did you download your free In Love with My Progress customizable tracker? Grab it now and then allow this blog post inspire you with different ways to use your new tracker!
Pay off Debt
In Love with My Progress tracker which has 50 hearts to color in, let’s say you have $5,000 of debt that you’d like to pay off this year. Each heart would represent $100. Every time you pay off $100, you get to color in a heart and see your debt being tackled!
*See additional Pro Tip at the end.
Saving up for something special
I looooove using color in trackers to keep me motivated when I’m saving $$ for something big - a trip to Disney, down payment for a home, new car, a puppy, you name it. If there’s something you’ve been wanting to save up for, using a visual tracker will help you save MORE and save FASTER. Decide what it is you’re saving for, figure out what the total amount you’ll need to save up is. Write that amount at the top. Then divide that total amount by the number of spaces on your tracker (if you’re using the In Love with My Progress tracker, there are 50 hearts). Color in 1 heart each time you’ve saved that amount. And watch yourself start stacking the cash like crazy!
Track a new habit
This is a pretty straight forward example. If you want to do 50 workouts - color in 1 heart for each workout you complete. Some amazing habits worth building that you might want to track - journaling, meditating, drinking water, reading, getting 8 hours of sleep, tracking your food, afternoon walks, cooking at home, morning / evening skincare, 10 minute tidy up before bed. Pick 1 or 2 (no more than 2 to start) and color in your tracker every time you complete the habit. And don’t forget to pat yourself on the back each time as well!
Number of CONSECUTIVE days doing (or not doing) something
Similar to tracking habits, but taking it up a notch. As described above, you could color in a space every time you complete your morning skincare routine and then celebrate when you’ve done it 50 times, whether that takes 50 days to complete or 150 days to complete. But another option is to use the tracker to build consistency. Remember the STREAKS on Snapchat (do people still use snapchat?). It would tell you that you and your friend hit a 10 day streak if you had sent snaps to one another 10 days in a row, right? Same idea here. Choose 1 color to represent the days you completed the task (morning skincare as an example) and another color for the days you missed the task. Maybe your first streak is 3 days in a row before you skipped skincare on day 4 because you were running late and had to get out of the house quickly. So, day 4 would be colored in with the “skipped” color. This is a great way to build consistency with a habit. It can also help you see patterns over time so you can make adjustments to your approach, i.e. if you see that you’re always getting a 5 day streak of eating 5 veggies per day before breaking the streak… is that 5 day streak correlating to the workweek? What’s happening with your veggie intake on the weekends? Once you’ve observed the pattern, you can be mindful of ordering extra veggies when eating out on the weekends so you can still accomplish your goal, while enjoying going out to eat.
Reading
Color in one space for each book you’ve read. Easy peasy. Or you could color a heart for every DAY that you do some reading. OR you could color a heart for every 10 pages you read. Choose the increments that best align with your overall goal.
Progress on a Project
Maybe you’ve got a massive project at work or at home that’s intimidating you right now. Let’s use the example of reviewing your business finances for the past year, to get ready for tax time. Break the project down into whatever increments make sense to you. Maybe that’s 1 heart for each month’s expenses (that’s 12), 1 heart for each month’s revenue (now we’re up to 24), 1 heart for each month’s receipts (36), 1 heart for each month’s mileage (48), 1 heart for making your tax appointment and 1 heart for filing your taxes. Boom! All 50 hearts on the In Love with My Progress tracker accounted for. On a super motivated day, maybe you crush through 5 months of expenses. Heck yes! And maybe on a day with less spare time to dedicate to this project, you only get through 1 month. Rather than be disappointed in that, you get to color in 1 heart and celebrate that you’ve made progress! See how using your tracker can really change your perspective on those “small” bits of progress along the way?
Days of going WITHOUT something
Similar to how you’d use your In Love with My Progress tracker to build a new habit, you can use it to motivate you to break a habit or decrease the frequency of that habit by coloring in and celebrating each day that you go without. Examples: ordering from DoorDash, spending on Amazon, biting your nails, eating an entire bag of frozen corn and nothing else for dinner because you’re too lazy to make a meal (what… who does that?? This is OBVIOUSLY *NOT* a personal example 😂🤣).
Decluttering
Have you been dying to capture the minimalist spirit? Color in for each piece of clutter you’re selling, donating or throwing out. OR color in one space for every 10 items you’re decluttering.
Hours spent on a goal
I’m personally doing the 1,000 hours outside challenge this year. That’s a tall order. 1,000 hours in 1 year = 83.3 hours per month / roughly 21 hours outside per week / about 3 hours outside per day. It’s totally doable… but it’s going to take a lot of intentionality, a lot of focus and a full year of staying connected to this goal. I could go about tracking my progress a few different ways. If I use the In Love with My Progress tracker (with 50 hearts), I could:
- Divide 1,000 hours by 50 hearts. Each heart = 20 hours. I could color in 1 heart every time I’ve racked up 20 hours outside.
- Let every heart = 1 hour outside. Color in a heart for each hour I’ve spent outside. After completing 1 full page (50 hours outside), write a big 50 across the top (maybe add the date I started that particular page and the date I completed that page) and then print out a new tracker with another 50 hearts. By the end of my 1,000 hours outside - I’d have 20 trackers filled in to look back on.
Maybe you’re not doing 1,000 hours outside this year, but you have other goals that could be amazing to track by the hour - 10 hours per month of volunteering in your community, racking up 100 hours of meditating, writing for 1 hour per day.
Write a Book
Have you had the dream of writing a book for as long as you can remember? And every year, you tell yourself that this is the year? That’s a big, daunting, intimidating goal. It’s easy to psych yourself out. Using a visual tracker to keep your eye on the prize might be just the ticket in finally getting that manuscript done! Let’s say it’s a 300 page manuscript. Using your In Love with My Progress tracker, you could color in one space for every 6 pages written. Imagine… you’ve written 5 pages and you’re about to throw in the towel for the day. Then you glance up at your tracker, staring you in the face and realize, “If I just crank out ONE MORE PAGE, I get to fill in my tracker!”
At the end of the day, the options are limitless.
But even more importantly than HOW to use your new visual tracker, is WHY.
Maybe you’re tired of feeling stuck and uninspired.
Maybe you struggle with staying motivated when it feels like you’re not seeing progress, even though you’ve been putting in the work.
This is where visual trackers can play a KEY role in helping you stick to it and ACHIEVE those big ass goals that I know you have.
Let’s face it, when you’re trying to lose weight - no matter how many workouts you’ve done or how many meals you’ve tracked - you feel the most motivated when you SEE the number on the scale change or when you SEE that your pants are too big.
That visual tells your brain, “Hey, good job. The effort is paying off. The results are showing. Keep going.”
So, what the hell are you supposed to do when you’re not SEEING progress? OR when you see teeny tiny bits of progress, but in relation to the big, overall goal - it feels like you’ll never get there?
Fun trackers also add a touch of whimsy to otherwise heavy or daunting goals. Paying off debt can feel… intimidating. You may find yourself feeling badly or mentally beating yourself up for accruing debt. But then you add a fun, cute, simple tracker that you get to color in every few days, every week or every month and your brain gets to relax a bit. It helps you to look at the goal as a game or a challenge.
Visual trackers give you that sense of outside validation for your effort.
Seeing the tangible evidence of your efforts will help you feel a sense of accomplishment. And when you’re feeling accomplished - you also feel motivated to stay the course!
Psychologically speaking - visual aids activate the brain in a very different way than just checking things off of a to do list. And when it comes to staying motivated and not giving up on your big goals - working WITH your psychology is always going to be more beneficial than working against it.
It might sound like a small thing, but our brains WANT to feel accomplished and SEE RESULTS. If you’ve ever given up on a goal or self sabotaged before - it likely had to do with the fact that you weren’t seeing progress which led your brain to feeling defeated which led to giving up. That’s the root of MOST self sabotage.
But you can trick our brains into feeling more accomplished (without working any harder) by breaking your big goals down into these smaller chunks and then literally stopping to track and acknowledge that progress by doing something as simple as coloring in a heart on a tracker. Looking at the tracker, your brain will SEE progress and turn that into additional motivation and confidence, which keep you going for the long haul.
As a Life Coach, my job for YEARS has been helping people stay motivated and accomplish their goals. I have a specialized certification in Behavior Change and have studied the psychology of success for years, determined to give people the tools that will help them go out there and achieve the life of their dreams. And as with anything else, very often the most helpful & impactful tools aren’t the fanciest, they are simple and intentionally created. Everything I create for The AnderKat Shop is something I’ve used with my clients and has helped them achieve their biggest goals. Now, it’s YOUR TURN!
BONUS: Pro Tips for making your trackers work for you!
Pro Tip #1: Keep your tracker somewhere you’ll see it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. to keep your goals top of mind and so you never lose sight of the progress you’ve made! *I hang mine on my wall, in my bedroom. They look me in the face every damn day, so there’s no way that a day will go by without me thinking about my goals.
Pro Tip #2: Break down your goals into smaller pieces. If you have 10 credit cards you want to pay off with a total of $26,000 of credit card debt - start by making 1 tracker for 1 credit card. Work all the way through it. Finish it! Pay it off! Color that tracker in all the way to the top! CELEBRATE. And then start a new tracker for the next card. Breaking it down will help you to not feel overwhelmed and will allow you to celebrate yourself more often as you accomplish each goal along the way!
Okay, after ALL of this - now I’m dying to know how you’re going to use your In Love with My Progress tracker! Text me the word GOALS at 708.627.2628 literally right now! After adding me to your phonebook, immediately tell me what goal you’re going to track. I’d love to cheer you on, add some accountability and give some guidance or suggestions if needed!
I can’t wait to hear from you and to support you as you work toward your next big goal!
