Measure your growth by how many excuses you’ve stopped using this year.

Excuses are easier to count than progress, and they are a more honest measure of it. Each one you drop marks a place where you stopped negotiating with yourself and simply did the thing. The list usually gets shorter well before any visible results arrive, which is exactly why it is worth tracking. It tells you the change is real while the outcome is still catching up.

Write down the three reasons you most often give yourself for avoiding something that matters. Retire one of them this month. Notice what fills the space where the argument used to be.