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The Three Components of an Effective Written Plan
Number Three: Give Yourself the Ability to Measure Progress Each Step of the Way

It is our ability to measure progress that let's us know we're making progress.

Let us say, for the moment that you are starting to work toward a 5 year goal. If you were making normal progress toward that goal, after 3 months you would be 5% closer to that goal.

However, if you had no way of measuring your progress, there's no way you'd know you were 5% closer to that goal. Five percent progress is so small it's not something you can touch or feel. In fact, if you had no way of measuring it, you would probably assume you'd made no progress at all.

You might even say, "I've been working toward this goal for the last three months and I feel as though I'm still on square one. Why bother?" At this point you would probably give up, even though you were right on target. You just didn't give yourself a chance to know it.

If your sales goal was to close 144 sales in a year, you wouldn't just go out and wing it (although many do). You would formulate a plan that would break down your goal to 12 sales a month. Now your goal is no longer 144, your goal is 12.

By doing it this way, if you reach 12 in January, you'll say to yourself, "Great! Right on target! Let's keep going." If you just winged it, meaning your goal would be 144, you might say this to yourself after reaching 12 in January, "Oh man, 132 still to go!" By April you'd be convinced that your goal was unrealistic and revise it downward.

Also, by measuring our progress each step of the way, it allows us to anticipate problems, thereby giving us the chance to fix them before they become catastrophes.