What I have always found fascinating is the fact that most of the time, what we want to do, have or be are all things which have been accomplished by others time and time again. People have gone from poverty to wealth, from being unemployed to running successful businesses, from being overweight to running marathons, so what is it that differentiates Successes from Failures? Achievers from Settlers?
A famous study carried out at Yale University found that in 1953, just 3% of the graduating class had written down a set of goals of their lives. 20 Years later a survey of the same group revealed that the 'goal setting' students were financially worth more than the other 97% put together. This 3% also has better relationships and enjoyed better health. It wasn't the parental wealth, degree subjects taken, career selected, ethnic or gender base or any of the other obvious factors that made the difference. The factor that linked all these students was that they had all set clear goals.
This study clearly shows the power and effects of goal setting, yet most people will spend more time planning their outfit of the day or where to go out at the weekend than planning their lives.
On some level we subconsciously set ourselves goals every single day. For example if you are hungry, you will set yourself the goal to eat food. If you walk over to the fridge and it is empty, you will most likely proceed to raid the cupboards, go out to eat, order a take away etc. but you are unlikely to stop until you have reached your goal, or in this case until you have eaten.
When a goal is set, the brain is so efficient that it will direct its thoughts and strategies towards achieving it. However with no goals the brain has no direction or outcome to work towards, this means that you will live on other people's terms, doing things as a result of other people's decisions rather than your own.
So my question is, if we KNOW that we want more, if we have PROOF that setting goals is a first huge step toward having what we want AND if we know that goal setting is something that we easily do on a daily basis, how stupid is it not to do it for things that really matter to us?
By now I am sure you know where I am going with this.....Be smart and SET.YOURSELF.SOME.GOALS!
Lets start simple, think of an area of your life you would like to improve, then grab pen and paper and answer the following questions (and yes actually write this down, it makes a massive difference and I will explain why in the next post, but for now just trust me)
- What do you want? (Answer this using a statement which is directed towards what you want rather than away from what you don't want i.e. 'I want to have a job' rather than 'I don't want to be unemployed'.)
- How will you know when you have succeeded? (reached your goal)
- Where, when and with who do you want to achieve this goal?
- What resources do you need to help you achieve this goal? (i.e. skills, qualifications, contacts, objects, money..)
- What will happen if you don't achieve this goal?
- What will happen if you do achieve this goal?
Muhammad Ali once said 'what keeps me going is goals', he went on to become the first boxer to win lineal heavyweight championships three times and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight championship boxer of all time. Is it a coincidence that a goal setter = a success? I will let you decide.
No comments:
Post a Comment