How to measure your progress in life

Time is passing fast. It's hard to look back at the year so far, and to think that I didn't make much progress this year. My main issue is that measuring progress only works in reference to a goal. But I have put off setting concrete goals for a long time now, mostly because I'm scared to commit to a single thing. I also believe it's the best way forward. I have read way to much self-help advice, so I know what to do. Here then, is the approach I will follow in the next few days:

I know roughly where I want to go. You probably know too. Now, it's time to get specific. What things do you want to do sometime? How does your ideal lifestyle look like?

Neil Gaiman visualises this success as a mountain he's walking towards. For every step on the way, he can ask himself "Does this bring me closer to the mountain?". Define what this mountain is to you.

A journal prompt that might be useful (but that I haven't used so far) is to write about "a day in the live of your dreams." Get as specific as possible about it and write it in the present tense.

Once you know how your success looks like, it will be easy to identify a few important goals to focus on next. Answering the question "What one thing can I do this year to make everything else easier or unnecessary?" will help. Apply this question both for your personal and professional life.

If you goal includes a specific target (i.e. publish one blog post per week), it's too specific for this level. A well-crafted goal might be to "craft well-written, narrative-driven stories that change the way people understand the world."

Once you've identified these goals, create a list of the 2-3 most important activities to achieve them. These activities should be specific enough to allow you to clearly picture yourself doing them, but general enough that they're not tied to a onetime outcome. A good activity in this context would be something like "regularly read and understand the cutting-edge results in my field."

If you've done the last step, you know what you need to do to achieve your goals. Now, perform at least one of these activities each day. Start doing a week review to schedule these activities in advance.

Over time, the core activities will change. For example, a novice writer will have to think more deliberately about finding an audience than someone who already published a few best-selling novels. Therefore, review your goals and associated activities on a regular basis. Are they still up to date? Has something changed and the activities you were doing don't serve you anymore. What are the best steps to get closer to your dream life now?

Doing this once a quarter is probably a good baseline.