Glossary
Self Monitoring
What is self-monitoring?
In behavior change, self-monitoring means observing and recording your behavior or progress toward a goal. A learner might record each practice session and compare the weekly total with their planned schedule.
Examples of self-monitoring
You might log time spent on a task or record completed walks. A mood diary records a different kind of information: how you felt and when. A notebook, app, or wearable is only a way to collect the record; its usefulness depends on the question you are trying to answer.
A record used in therapy
A therapist-guided record might separate four observations. In a hypothetical example:
- situation—a colleague has not replied;
- thought—“They are annoyed with me”;
- feeling—anxiety;
- action—avoiding the next conversation.
Keeping these fields separate makes the interpretation distinguishable from the observed event.
Recording is one step. Evaluating the thought is another: the person and therapist can examine evidence for and against it and consider other explanations. The NHS thought-record exercise illustrates this progression from identifying a situation, feelings, and thoughts to checking evidence and considering alternatives. A log by itself does not complete that process.
What the research found
A meta-analysis of 138 randomized studies found that interventions encouraging progress monitoring improved goal attainment on average. Effects were larger in studies where progress was recorded or reported. That comparison does not establish that every diary, app, or wearable works equally well.
Why it matters
A record can show a gap between your plan and what happened. Deciding whether to change the schedule, seek help, or choose a different approach comes next. The record is useful when it is accurate and tells you something relevant to the goal.
Keep the recording burden in view. Missing entries and rough estimates limit what a record can tell you, and a number may leave out important context. Ask whether the information is useful enough to justify the effort.
This differs from self-monitoring as a personality concept, which concerns adjusting how you present yourself in response to social cues.