Today we want to talk about the importance of collecting data while trying to reach our goals.

During workouts it is important to keep track of what exercises you’re doing, how many sets/reps, and the weight. This way you track your progress and see when you are getting stronger.

We use a skills tacker for our nutrition coaching clients for the same reasons. It helps them see how often they are practicing the skill and can determine if what they are doing will help them reach their goals.

Oftentimes people look at the tracker and think it is used to show them they are doing bad or not working hard enough. While it can be a valuable tool to help you dial back a skill if it seems to challenge it can also be valuable to help you realize you had a great week when you think otherwise.

Just this week before our weekly call, one of my superhero one-on-one nutrition coaching clients said she had a bad week and was not mentally in it at all. As I began to think about how to approach this conversation I pulled up this client’s tracker.

She was working on plating a balanced meal and had a specific goal for how many balanced meals she was going to plate during the week. When I took a look this client had reached or exceeded all of her goals except for two, and the two that she didn’t reach she was only off by about 1 meal.

This made me curious as to why she thought she didn’t have a good week.

While talking on the phone this client explained that she just had a lot going on that week, after spending a few minutes chatting we looked at her tracker and she felt a lot better about how she did the previous week.

Collecting data does not just mean collecting data to make yourself feel bad, you should collect data so you can celebrate all of your wins!

Our goal here is to think about everything in a positive manner, it is too easy in life to focus on the negatives.