Measure Progress from 5 Years Ago

Learning to measure progress towards your goals is difficult. Especially when you want to compare yourself to 5 years ago.

Have you progressed towards your goals, have your goals shifted, are you working towards those, have you taken some steps backward, how has life changed?

These can be challenging questions to start to tackle. I was reading Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins when I came across the below exercise. It helped me see where I’ve improved and where I’ve made little progress.

Learning to measure progress is crucial for building long-term habits, and working towards living your dream life.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow Exercise

Step 1. How were you?

It helps to set the stage first. What were you doing five years ago? Who were you hanging out with? Where were you living? Put yourself back in the past. Take five minutes to solidify where you were.

Then rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in the past in each of the categories again. A 0 being you had nothing in this area, and a 10 means you are living your life’s desire in that category. After giving yourself a ranking, write a sentence to describe what you were like back then.

Rate yourself in the below categories of your life.

1. Physically
2. Mentally
3. Emotionally
4. Attractiveness
5. Relationships
6. Living environment
7. Socially
8. Spiritually
9. Career
10. Financially

Step 2. How are you now?

To see how far we’ve come, or to see where we still need work, do the same process for today. Giving yourself a ranking of 0-10. Then write a sentence or two describing how you are today.

1. Physically
2. Mentally
3. Emotionally
4. Attractiveness
5. Relationships
6. Living environment
7. Socially
8. Spiritually
9. Career
10. Financially

Step 3. Reflect

Measure your progress. Compare and contrast where you were 5 years ago and where you are today. What have you learned by seeing this comparison? Where have you improved more than you realized? Have you come a long way? That feels great!

Also, you realized where you haven’t come as far as you would have liked, or maybe you were better in the past five years ago than today. This is still a great message – you can make changes now before more years go by! As Tony says in his book, “Dissatisfaction can be a major key to success.”

Step 4. To the future

Project five years into the future. Give yourself a score and a sentence describing what you’ll be like in each of these categories. Use this to help set the goals that you want to work towards.

Use this guide to help you start setting the healthy habits that will get you to your dream goal.

1. Physically
2. Mentally
3. Emotionally
4. Attractiveness
5. Relationships
6. Living environment
7. Socially
8. Spiritually
9. Career
10. Financially

Main Take-Aways

• Measure progress from our past to the present to see areas where you have improved and where you can continue to improve.
• Use this assessment to help make goals for the future.

Action Items

Take twenty minutes to conduct this exercise sometime this week. Where have you improved? Where have you stalled? Have you regressed? Celebrate the success and acknowledge the missteps. Set your goals for the future and pick one area to work on each day for the next month to make that future possible.