This is a guest post by Paul Sabaj, a loyal reader of Success Circuit. This is his first guest post on Success Circuit so please comment and let him know what you think! Hopefully we will have many more from him in the future.
Goal setting has been around for a long time. When you look at some of the great minds they have all had a plan and set some goals with a time line to reach them by. Goals without time lines are just dreams. When you look through out history from the Bible, where it says,” Those without a vision will perish”, to today when Tony Robbins talks of goal setting.
There was also a study done at Harvard where they asked a graduating class their goals for the future and who had written them down. It was found that only 3 % had written them down. Twenty years latter they went back and asked the surviving members who had written their goals how they were doing. It was found that those that had written down their goals were more financially better off than the 97% combined. Pretty strong evidence for the practice of goal setting!
Take some time to write down your goals for short and long term goals. They should be looked at monthly so that should any changes be needed they can be sooner than latter. The nest step is to work on an action plan and a list of things needed to complete the goals. Again keep in mind that if you don’t where your going how are you going to get there. To leave your goals to chance is to let someone else set your course. Some of you will find that when you make your plans known people will let you do them. I know if my wife finds out I have no plans or goals she has a list of hers for me to do.
The other question you have to ask your self is “Why not me”. Your mantra should be I can, I will. The other part of goals is they become the basis for your action plan to get started to where you want to be and the steps you need to identify to make you dreams come true. The information highway has provided unlimited resources and all we have to do is have the motivation to do what ever it takes. You also find that with age and wisdom some times goals change. I myself have had the opportunity to have worked as a firefighter and retired at a young age. I’m currently working on my second career and have been busy for some time laying the ground work. My wife would like to see it sooner than latter and I must get to moving it along. I have made my list of goals and identified my short comings and have set a plan to be a video blogger with a niche for baby boomers. By following the success of others I have a road map to follow and my self motivation to help carry me along. Ok maybe a little push form the wife helps.
I have read over 100 self help books as I have found them to be a great source of inspiration and now must put all of that to work for me. Keeping your goals written down and in front of you can make those dreams a reality.
I think that having the goals in front of you allows you to think about where you want to be and go. Just like the talk of the book The Secret, the idea of having an idea or need in the fore front of your thinking allows you to concentrate more fully on the task at hand. Make the list and get started with your goals and where you want to be. So many people have no clue as to what they want and then wonder why they have no success. Get started!
I am really interested in learning who the 3% of the Harvard students were, that is a very impressive statistic!
I would like to also publically thank you for writing this post. For everybody else reading this comment, Paul emailed me yesterday with a draft of this post… it was only a few paragraphs but still a very good post. So I told him that I am fine with publishing it as it was but I thought he could write a slightly longer version and still be just as good if not better… it certainly paid off!! Well done.
Paul,
While I agree that goals are important, the study you referenced is quite possibly the most frequently cited study to never have existed (although sometimes people say it was a Yale study. Either way, I challenge anyone to find this study. Others have tried to find it without success).
But that is just picking nits. You are right that goals help to provide us with direction. I think the real challenge is not so much setting goals, but relentlessly pursuing them. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have set goals on numerous occasions and failed to achieve them. I'm not ashamed to admit it because I know others have faced the same challenge. It's not easy.
One of the reasons that I started my new blog was to help hold me accountable. I only started my blog on January 1st, so it is too early to tell if I will develop the persistence to really achieve some big goals. Time will tell.
Paul and Shane, I wish you the best of luck in achieving your goals.
This is a mistake I've made too much in life so far unfortunately. Either not setting goals properly or shifting goals mid-way instead of sticking it out through the hardships to get there.
Till then,
Jean
Hi Mark,
The study does not exist? That is a shame! Though it is a good example for the point of this post.
I too have set many goals that I have not (for whatever reason) been able to reach, or at least not in the time set.
You started a blog on Jan 1st? Same birthday as Success Circuit (though SC started 1 Jan 2009). Let me know (either through comment or emailing me) what your new blog is!
Good luck to you too!
Shane,
My blog is here:
http://www.markcancellieri.com/
A belated happy one year anniversary!
Setting a goal is a very important first step but actually writing things down is where it becomes important enough that you start to focus on how you're going to achieve it when automatically brings us to an action plan and from there actually doing it and monitoring our progress.
Writing things down is so important, in fact, I have a small phrase I made up a while ago:
If I know it the pencil knows it. If the pencil knows it the paper knows it. If the papers knows it I don't have to. Obviously you wouldn't exactly forget about it but the fact you have it on paper helps you to keep track of things much easier.
Just a small thing I made up that inspires me to write things down.
What do you think?
Writing goals down is always a good thing to do. But you can take it even further than that… tell your friends and family, facebook and tweet it, blog about them. If your goals are public then there is a much higher chance of achieving them!
I like that, rather catchy too!