The Power of Setting and Writing Your Goals

As Lewis Carroll said, “Any road will get you there if you don’t know where you are going”. To live a fulfilled life, we need to keep creating the "what is next", of our lives and setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. Without dreams and goals there is no living, only merely existing, and that is not why we are here.

You have a duty to perform. Do anything else, does any number of things, occupy your time fully, and yet, if you do not do this task, all your time will have been wasted. – Molana Rumi

Rumi implies that we were born to fulfil a particular goal in our lives. In turn, we were blessed with a unique gift – the ability to accomplish those goals. Just honey bee is born to make honey and is blessed with the necessary traits to do so, so too are we.

Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields all set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

Let me give you an example of my own life. Currently, I am a qualified Chartered Accountant with other four national and international professional certifications. I had decided to be a Chartered Accountant when I was in class eight with a below-average academic and non-academic background. The moment when I took the decision of being a Chartered Accountant was the moment that changed my life. I started to focus on studies and changed my school from government to private.

I participated in all academic and extracurricular activities. I concentrated on everything that is relevant to my purpose. I started to follow my purpose and took decision those were helping me to be one step closer to my aim. Because once we find our own way, we will be more careful and selective about our daily actions. I had defined my aim and what I wanted; it was easier to deal with doubts. Easier not to get distracted from what was important kept my focus and kept moving. Whenever someone asked me, what was my aim in life?

Always I was having a straight answer that I wanted to be a Chartered Accountant while ninety-five per cent of students of my age were without any answer. This is why a person with goals has a clear edge over others having no idea about their goals?    

Defining your direction as early as possible is the most important decision in sports. But, curiously enough, this is also the most important decision in life in general, but much fewer people realize it. Clarity of purpose challenges you to do better and commit to actions that get you closer to the one thing you really want in life.

When we spend time with goals, it is much like spending time with a lover-we are passionate and exited. We are driven and energized, upbeat and positive. 

Forbes reports a remarkable study about goal-setting carried out in the Harvard MBA Program. Harvard's graduate students were asked if they have set clear, written goals for their futures, as well as if they have made specific plans to transform their fantasies into realities.

The result of the study was only 3 percent of the students had written goals and plans to accomplish them, 13 percent had goals in their minds but haven't written them anywhere and 84 percent had no goals at all. Think for a moment which group you belong to.

After 10 years, the same group of students were interviewed again and the conclusion of the study was totally astonishing.

• The 13 percent of the class who had goals, but did not write them down, earned twice the amount of the 84 percent who had no goals.
• The 3 percent who had written goals were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97 percent of the class combined.

People who don't write down their goals tend to fail easier than the ones who have plans.

Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, recently studied the art and science of goal setting.

She gathered two hundred and sixty-seven people together — men and women from all over the world, and from all walks of life, including entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare professionals, artists, lawyers and bankers. She divided the participants into groups, according to who wrote down their goals and dreams, and who didn’t.

And she discovered that those who wrote down their goals and dreams on a regular basis achieved those desires at a significantly higher level than those who did not. In fact, she found that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a regular basis.

The likelihood that you’ll transform your desires into reality goes up even further if you share your written goals with a friend who believes in your ability to succeed (what I call a “partner in believing”).

The explanation has to do with the way our brains work. As you may know, your brain has a left and a right hemisphere. The wide, flat bundle of neural fibres that connects the two hemispheres is called the corpus callosum. This is the conduit through which the electrical signals between the right brain, which is imaginative, and the left brain, which is literal, make contact. These electrical signals then move into the fluid that surrounds the brain and travel up and down the spinal column. These signals then communicate with every fibre, cell and bone in our body... to the consciousness that operates within us to transform our thoughts into reality. It allows us to align our frequency to a life we would love living.

This is significant because if you just THINK about one of your goals or dreams, you’re only using the right hemisphere of your brain, which is your imaginative centre. But, if you think about something that you desire, and then write it down, you also tap into the power of your logic-based left hemisphere. And you send your consciousness and every cell of your body a signal that says, “I want this, and I mean it!”

Just the act of writing down your dreams and goals ignites an entirely new dimension of consciousness, ideas and productivity to the powerhouse that is your subconscious mind. This simple act also opens your subconscious to “seeing” opportunities that simply can’t be observed if you’re tied up with THINKING about your goals.

I set my goals for the next 33 years on 8th November 2015. All goals are divided into years and grouped into four to five years. My goals for the first 4 years from 2016 to 2019 were, “Get two promotion, start teaching, write articles and practice writing in my journal”. I have accomplished my goals twenty-one months earlier than planned. A goal without a timeline is just a dream. And when we write them down then, the law of the power of writing starts conspiring to help you to achieve what you want to achieve precisely.

By setting and writing sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

Defining your direction as early as possible is the most important decision in sports. But, curiously enough, this is also the most important decision in life in general, but much fewer people realize it. Clarity of goals with deadlines challenges you to do better and commit to actions that get you closer to the one thing you really want in life.

“A dream written down with a date becomes a Goal.

A Goal broken down into steps becomes a Plan.

A Plan backed by Action, Makes Your Dreams Come True.”  (Greg S. Reid)