Imagine this, you’ve set a goal to start reading more and you’re now indulging in a novel from your favorite author. You come to a stopping point and reach for your bookmark to place it inside. That bookmark is now a checkpoint that designates the remaining distance to reaching your goal. Of course, you can close the book and remember the page number, but let’s be realistic, it’s not as efficient.

The same concept applies when trying to achieve your fitness goals. Of course, you can exercise and eat healthier but without proper tracking, the time remaining to achieve your goals is unclear. Your fitness goals may be further away than they seem - exclusively due to a lack of recording your progress.

Just like in video games, checkpoints are set after you reach a certain point in your journey that indicates moving backwards is unnecessary. With fitness, taking progress photos, tracking your calories, noting physical differences in your appearance, recording your reps/sets, etc. will not only help you to achieve your goals on time, but it will also motivate you along the way.

Tracking your progress is a crucial step in your fitness journey because of how our brains react to accountability. When the brain is exposed to dopamine, you acknowledge a feeling of enjoyment. When you visually see changes in your progress photos, differences in your scale weight or improvements in your health, your brain registers that as exciting information and releases dopamine to ensure you carry on.

The more you persist, the more accountable you feel due to how far you’ve come and how close you are to reaching your goal. Tracking your progress may seem tedious, but that one addition to your routine may just be the deciding factor in your ability to achieve your goals!