Sunday, February 24, 2008

Write it down

I cannot express the importance of writing down your goals. Some of you may not believe that it's as important as it actually is, but maybe this real-life study will help convince you.

A study was done with the 1953 graduating class at Yale. Researchers asked participants 3 questions:
Have you set goals?
Have you written them down?
Do you have a plan to accomplish them?

It turned out that only 3% of the Yale class had written down their goals and had a plan to achieve them. 84% had no specific goals at all, other than to "enjoy themselves."

20 years later, the same class was surveyed and it was found that the 13% who had goals that were not in writing were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% of students who had no goals at all. But, the 3% of who had written down their goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% of graduates combined.

Think of what would happen if you wrote down your goals for all areas of your life. Not only would you be earning more, but you would be healthier, you would have better relationships, and I can bet your level of happiness would be pretty high.