How do you know when you're improving & by how much???

[Gomez22]

Now, I still make some plays that the more experienced players scoff at(just read my 87s hand from this forum to see what I mean) and even though from time to time I scratch my head and wonder, "What the hell was I thinking making that play???", for some reason (unrelating to actual playing - what I mean here, is that I "feel" like a better player), I feel as though my game has improved over the past week. During that time, I've played $50 NL ring games, and $5 SNG, with a few milti-tables thrown in(I'll put results of these later on).

I guess my question would be: How can I determine if my level of playing has gone up from 2 weeks ago? 1 month ago? 6 months ago?

I've always looked at(and felt) progression in any field is a series of peaks and plateaus, and I feel right now that I've left a plateau and am climbing another peak. The only thing is, I've had nothing but wins(excluding MTT's) since I started feeling this way, and I don't want to confuse this with any type of rush...

What would be a good way to evaluate my progress??? Would comparing, say 5000 hands played last month with 5000 this month? If so, do I have to take into consideration that last month I was playing $25 NL ring games and this month my bankroll has grown(on 2 sites) enough to play the $50 ring games?

I guess I would like to know if anyone has a "ruler" for gauging progress...???

OK... from my last week of playing NL games:

NL $50 tables:
20 sessions
10 winning sessions
2472 hands(I've had to play a few short sessions due to work and such)
BB/Hour: 7.41
BB/100 hands: 12.25


$5.50 MTT tournies(I really need to work on my MTT's)
3 Tournies(2 UB, 1 Stars - the 2 on UB, I used points to buy-in)

UB Tourney 1 - 581 players, I finished 357(On SS, I got all-in PF with pocket queens and ran into AK, who improved)
UB Tourney 2 - 589 players, I finished 103(Never really got anything going)
Stars Tourney - 925 players, I finished 137(Took what I considered a rough beat all-in with KK, opp rivering a straight)

19 $5 SNG's(Some have $1 rake, some have $.50 rake)
5 First place finishes
4 Second place finishes
4 Third place finishes

63% in the money, 26% win rate, for a profit of $125 (Won the last 3 I've entered)

Maybe these stats for MTT's and SNG aren't relative in this forum, per se, but I listed them here because I want to be a well-raounded player, and I figure that they hold some relavance to my progress as a player.

Thanks for any thoughts/replies...

'Mez