Achieving your goal begins with the awareness of the outcome, change or improvement you want, and setting a clear and specific goal to help you attain it.  Once that's done, you must then decide the steps you must take to get there, and finally insure you do take action to move you closer to that goal every day (see Achieving Personal Goals). This page explains how tracking the data on the things we are interested in changing can produce improvements in our performance and increase the motivation to achieve the goal.

In June 2008, Veronica Noone attached a small sensor to her running shoes and left her house to go for a run.  This sensor measured the distance she traveled, and how long she spent on the run.  This information was then transferred to and stored in her iPod. I first heard about this technology recently in a story in Wired magazine, but I was struck less with fascination with the technology and more with the impact it had on her behavior, motivation and activity levels.

Having the ability to see this kind of information about the activity appears to encourage most people and leads them to want to do it again.  According to Veronica, "It just made running so much more entertaining for me.  There's something about seeing what you've done, how your pace changes as you go up and down hills, that made me more motivated".  The result is that it's led to modification in her behavior, to the point that she is running frequently each week now and has started entering races.  She attributes much of her present fitness and to the benefits of having that data from each run.

The benefits of recording our progress at whatever we are doing, and specifically when we have set a goal, is that it gives us clear feedback which motivates us, and it shows trends that we might not otherwise detect.  We inherently seem to like those trends to move toward the direction of improvement, in the direction of our goal.  Without feedback, we are able to proceed with blissful ignorance about our performance and lose the opportunity to feel satisfaction from any improvements.  As they say, "what you don't know won't kill you", but the missing part of that message (in my opinion) should be that you also miss out on the increased motivation that you would get if you knew your results. 

Observing the statistics on this technology has revealed another interesting fact.   It appears that something happens once someone uses the system 5 times.  Once users hit five 'uses', i.e. 5 times having recorded their data, they're much more likely to keep running and uploading their data.  After completing five runs, users have become dependent on what the data (feedback) tells them about themselves.  It seems probable the same results would apply to weight loss, educational goals or anything else that we might track if we are interested in our performance.  The lesson: Stick to the plan you set to achieve your goal, and record your results at least 5 times, and you will significantly improve your chances for success.

Another interesting effect has been observed.   Users examining the results of their runs produce what sociologists call the Hawthorne effect.  The the Hawthorne effect says that we will revise our behavior for the better if we know we are being observed.  If you're thinking this sounds like accountability, you're right.  You don't have to actually be watched by another person, but by tracking and viewing the data from your performance you basically become your own observer, and the principles end up working the same way.  It's inevitable that when your track your progress and review it on a regular basis, you will begin holding yourself accountable for those results which will generally lead to better performance.

In another example of this principle, it's been shown on many occasions that those people who diligently count their calories when trying to shed pounds do better than those who don't count calories.  Sound familiar?  When you review the feedback and have a clear picture of what it has been, you become an observer.  Another company, Core Performance, has found that workouts in which metrics are recorded (sets, reps, weight lifted, etc) make you fitter, because you will workout more precisely and work harder if you know you're going to be reviewing your results.  Once again, you become your observer and unconsciously hold yourself accountable.  It's similar to not being observed when you don't track and record your results.  One of the owners of Wicker Park Fitness, Mason Goldbert, says "People love to track things.  It brings out their competitive spirit."

Most experts say goals must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevent and Time Sensitive).   Getting accurate, consistent feedback is a perfect example of the "measurable" component.

Veronica's run that day covered 1.67 miles in 18 minutes and 36 seconds.  But it did something even more important.  It gave her a measurement for how she performed that day, and it also gave her something to track her future performance against.  Since that first run until the point where the story was published, Veronica had run 95 more times, logging 283 miles in about 48 hours.  More importantly, her weight went from a high of 225 lbs to 145 lbs.

What we measure tends to improve. 

For more information on this and other topics related to making improvements in your life, go to Achieving Personal Goals.