HabitMix

Habit Tracker - Why you should be tracking your habits

Where are you Going ?

Road Trip! Planning for any travel requires preparation. Thought has to be given to what is needed while you make your way down the road and what you will need when you arrive at your destination.

As you pack your essentials into the car, you consider the daily importance each item has. For instance, your suitcases packed full with your jammies, toothbrush, toothpaste, as well as clean clothes can be stored in the trunk.

After all, you only really need those items when you stop for the night. The extra pillow, blanket, drinks and snacks will be utilized more frequently and therefore occupy the space behind the front seats, close enough to be easily reached. Also on that back seat are boredom busters, extra cd's, books you want to read, and perhaps some items you want to accomplish on this trip, like finishing a proposal for work.

The front seat and front storage areas are prime real estate. Only items of high importance and frequent use are allowed to reside in the front of the car. The driver, impossible to proceed without, mans the controls. The co-pilot, if invited, rides shot-gun in the front passenger seat and the most important item, normally rides between the two, the map.

Those that appreciate the ease and accuracy of technology have abandoned the once complicated art of map folding, and now rely on a GPS system. Paper or electronic, the tool is the same, a tracking device, a road map, that allows you to pinpoint where you are, where you are going, and how you are going to get there.

Maps show the most direct route, the scenic tour, the county roads and the national highways. With a map you can stay on course, or find your way back to the main road, should you stray. Anyone intent on traveling from one place to another, into less familiar territory, uses a tracking tool.

A tracking tool is needed when someone wants to make a journey from one place to another. Whether you want to go from Miami to Vegas or move from debt laden to debt free, a size 14 to a size 10, save for retirement or gain healthy habits, tracking where you are and where you are going will increase your chance of successfully getting from Point A to Point B.

The tracking tool needed for behavior change also comes in different models.

You may prefer the older model of a spiral notebook and a number two pencil, or perhaps you favor the modern version of easy-to-use goal tracking software. Either model will help you transverse the path from A to B, and will track where you are on your personal journey.

Habit tracking is a critical component to success when trying to instill new habits or eliminate old ones We live our lives on automatic pilot; you know the route to your job, to the grocery store, to your child's school, without giving it much thought, but going somewhere new requires your attention and intentional direction changes. The same is true when changing habits, if you try to navigate to a new behavior on automatic pilot, you will not get where you want to be.

True change requires focus, attention and purposeful intent.

A quick search through your favorite Internet browser will introduce you to the variety of personal goal software that is readily and freely available to help you start your journey.

The benefits of using technology in your goal setting journey are many. First of all, the privacy factor, there is no spiral notebook left lying out for prying eyes to devour your secrets. You can enter brutally honest facts and information and it is secured from enquiring minds.

Second, there is no need to recruit an accountability partner. Using online goal setting software allows you to be your own accountability partner, again sharing only the information you want to share with your friends and co-workers. Also, it is possible to use the goal setting website of your choice as your homepage on your computer, reminding you to track your progress each and every day. Additionally, programs offer an easy-to-use template that will help you address more than one goal at a time, in an organized fashion.

Online goal trackers help you organize your goals into manageable steps such as daily, weekly, or longer term sub-goals. Access to your program is as close as the next wi-fi hot spot on any computer, eliminating the need to remember to bring your spiral notebook when traveling.

Technology has redefined many things, for example, how business is conducted, how education is administered and how people communicate. And just like GPS systems that assist drivers in travelling to new places, habit tracking software provides a free and user-friendly tool that empowers the individual to set, organize and reach the personal goals in their life.

If where you are in life is not exactly where you want to be, you need to shut off the auto pilot and take control of the wheel with a new focus, directed attention and purposeful intent.

Use the tools, utilize habit tracking software to get where you want to be.