Why You Should Be Writing Down Your Goals

Why You Should Be Writing Down Your Goals

We hear a lot about the importance of goal-setting but most of us don’t have clear and measurable goals to work toward. Lewis Carroll says, “Any road will get you there, if you don’t know where you are going,” but how important are goals really and if they are vital, how can we make them most effective?

According to a study done by Gail Matthews at Dominican University, those who wrote down their goals accomplished significantly more than those who did not write down their goals. Who doesn’t want to accomplish significantly more? Here are four steps to creating clear and measurable goals that will lead you to huge success.

Create a Vision

The first step to creating a goal is to figure out what you want. If you don’t know what you want, you don’t know what you need to achieve to get there.  This is actually the fun part. You get to dream. What do you really want to create for yourself? What does your ideal life look like? Don’t be afraid to think big. Take fifteen minutes and document your vision. Take note of the details. What does your day look like? Where are you living? Try to incorporate all senses in your vision to make it most effective. What do you see, hear, smell, taste and feel throughout this ideal day?

Make it Measurable

Take your vision and turn it into a written list of concrete goals. If in your ideal world you are working for yourself, one of your goals might be to start your own company. Choose an achievable time frame to accomplish your goals as well as measurable details so you know exactly when you’ve achieved them. What exactly does it mean to start your own company? Make sure to set yourself up for success by creating goals that are realistic and achievable in the given time-frame.

Set Benchmarks

Most of our goals are a build-up of small achievements, sometimes even years of many small successes. Break your goals into small actionable steps and assign realistic time frames to each. Continue to break big steps into smaller and smaller steps until goals seem less daunting and achievable. Benchmarks are a great way to keep you on track. You may find you are moving more quickly or slowly than you expected. That’s not a problem, you can adjust! Adjust your expectations and timeline as you gather more information while achieving your benchmarks.

Celebrate Your Success

I believe the most important part of goal-setting is celebrating our successes. How will you reward yourself for hitting your benchmarks along the way? How will you celebrate once you’ve reached your goal? As we journey to the realization of our goals, it’s important to remember our vision. Why we want something can provide us with the motivation and determination to continue to work toward it even when things don’t go as planned or are more difficult than we anticipated.

From now on, choose to be among the most successful people and write down your goals. Create a vision for what you want, turn that into a list of measurable goals, set benchmarks and celebrate your successes along the way.