If you didn’t already know, its super important to set and write down your goals. There are so many reasons why it’s important to put pen to paper and see your goals become real!
Goal setting is important, as I’ve discussed in a previous post, its proven that if you write down your goals, you are significantly more likely to achieve them.
Heres why:
Many studies have been carried out, researching the effect of writing down a goal. ‘Harvard carried out a study that asked students if they have a clear set of written goals of the future, the results showed that only 3% had written goals, 13% had their goals in their mind, and the other 84% had no goals at all. Ten years later the same group of students were asked about their goals and current lifestyle. The 13% of students that had their goals in their minds, were earning twice the amount of the 84% that had no goals, and the 3% who had written down their goals were earning on average 10 times as much as the whole class combined.’ The information of this study was sourced from elitedaily, and the detailed survey of this can be found at http://elitedaily.com/money/writing-down-your-goals/1068863/
On top of this goal setting also encourages people to take control of their lives, by this I mean it helps to give a sense of direction, and be able to clearly state and see written down what exactly you want to achieve. Written goals get maximum results, it encourages people to have laser focus on specific areas of their life or specific targets. A realism comes from writing down your goals, whilst goals that are just in the mind, remain secret and imaginary as such, writing them down makes them real, and makes you accountable, its almost an obligation to act, and from this, motivation emerges and pushes you to achieve everything on the list.
So while now you might understand why its important to goal set, not everyone knows how to properly go about this, as when I first started I wasn’t 100% sure how to effectively goal set.
4 Simple steps to start goal setting:
1. Start with just a few- productivity studies show that you can’t focus on more than 5-7 things at any one time, so start basic, then as you see results and you gain confidence gradually increase to up to 5-7 goals a day.
Make your goals specific- they need to be identifying exactly what you want to accomplish and with this they need to also be actionable- meaning starting the goal with a verb as this is more effective (Example: Complete my blog post and write 2 more, as opposed to: be more consistent with blogging, the first example is much more actionable and specific.)
Add a time element to your goal, otherwise the goal is open ended- this can be done by setting daily goals, weekly goals, or dated goals ect.
Review your goals frequently-you have to go over your goals frequently and ask yourself what steps still needed to be taken in order to achieve them.
Once you become more of an avid goal setter, you will develop your own style, determining whether you prefer to set longer term goals, or short goals, and a routine of when you set and review your goals.
Personally, I mostly like to set daily goals, they are specific to the day, often smaller tasks, but on occasion I like to set weekly goals, consisting of more tasks, that are bigger than the daily goals, as there is more time to complete them.
The massive advantages to me for goal setting are:
The effectiveness of completing goals that I have written down.
The feeling of achievement and sense of accomplishment I get from ticking off all tasks I set out to do.
So, if you don’t currently goal set, give it a try, and see the effectiveness for yourself! Be productive and obtain your goals.
~~P.S. If anyone is interested I have added a products section to the blog, in which I have added some of my personal favorite stationary pieces for journaling and goal setting, as well as a few other products. As you can see from the blog photo, I love my journals, you can never have to many journals and notebooks !!~~ Click here to go to products
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