According to a USA Today research on New Year's resolutions, those who write down their objectives are more likely to stick to them than those who simply think or talk about them — even if the only difference between these two sets of people is the act of writing their goals down beforehand.
It turns out that the seemingly simple act of writing activates a variety of psychological and personal factors that lead to real-world effects. We're talking about more than a 100% difference in outcomes.
Pay attention to the following factors. They explain why writing down your goals, whether they are smaller short-term goals or "Big Picture" long-term ones, greatly enhances the likelihood that you will succeed in whatever you set out to accomplish.
Increased Motivation
Too many individuals instinctively feel that simply thinking about doing something is equivalent to really doing it. They mistake thinking, contemplation, and analysis for action. Don't get me wrong: when defining goals, you should do study. You should gather enough information to make a properly educated conclusion.
What's the problem? People frequently mix analysis and information gathering with taking action toward their goals. They deceive themselves into believing that since they are combing through all of this data, they can avoid taking a stand and putting their money where their mouth is.
Writing down your plans and breaking them down step by step is the next best thing to having a life coach cheering you on every day. It boosts your motivation to actually start working toward your goals. Too much analysis and information gathering, on the other hand, can result in a foggy idea of what your aim should be. In reality, it is not uncommon for people suffering from "analysis paralysis" to have no specific aims. Their goal is so ill-defined, free-flowing, and formless that they become less motivated.
There is no sense of urgency, so they continue to gather information while getting no closer to achieving anything of actual value – while investing a significant amount of time, effort, and money.
Narrowed Focus
I cannot underscore this more. When you are focused on something, it is simpler to devote your time, energy, and attention to it. As a result, setting out your goals allows you to clearly determine where you want to direct your time, money, and resources. All other potential priorities are placed aside, allowing you to focus on what is genuinely important.
This focus improves your chances of seeing a return on your efforts. This focus also raises the value of your labor and keeps you from being sidetracked.
Clear Benchmarks
If you are unsure about what you want to achieve, it is all too simple to give yourself excuses for failure. In fact, if your goals are vague enough (mostly because they aren't written down), you may delude yourself into believing that practically any outcome is a "success."
Of course, if you were entirely honest with yourself, you'd realize that there are far more desirable outcomes than the majority of developments that arise from your efforts. Unfortunately, it is difficult to keep focused on these genuine results if your goals are vague and variable because you have not written them down.
Written goals demand specific outcomes. Because you can see the particular results you should aim for, it is more difficult to fudge your results. You end up making fewer excuses and preparing yourself for true progress.
Reduced Stress
Your overall stress levels decrease because written goals are clearer and easier to pin down than mental goals. When you keep yourself guessing about what your goals should be, it's too simple to get stressed.
On the one hand, you may be mentally framing your goals as broader than they actually are. This implies you have a lot more to worry about.
On the other side, you may think of your ill-defined unwritten goals in such narrow terms that when difficulties come, you panic. You kick yourself for not considering certain scenarios ahead of time. You wind up spending more money and effort on fires that could have been put out earlier (or avoided from starting in the first place) if you had simply written down your goals.
Small Wins
There are no such things as impossible goals. There is no such thing as an impossible aim. The only thing that makes a goal hard to attain is its deadline or schedule. These are two entirely distinct factors: timeline/deadline and aim.
If you don't believe me, recall the late 1950s Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States. When Kennedy boldly stated that the United States would send a man to the moon, many people throughout the world thought he was crazy. In their minds, a manned lunar expedition was the stuff of dreams. Just a few years later, the world went berserk over live television video of Neil Armstrong on the moon's surface. What's the moral of the story? There are no unattainable goals.
Writing out your goals allows you to divide them down into smaller, more manageable modules. The more you can break down a goal into modules that fit inside a realistic schedule, the more practical and achievable your goals will be. It is difficult to convert your goals into modules if you do not write them down. You can miss a vital element.
Better Systems
Successful people can attain (and sustain) success by developing systems. They automate. They outsource. They perform things in a specific order that enhances the value of their results or accelerates their procedures. In other words, they use methods rather than relying solely on luck.
If you don't write down your goals, you'll make it extremely difficult for yourself to develop a method. You may end up chasing your tail because you overlooked a key element or neglected to pay attention to a critical task.
The Bottom Line
If you want to put more of your amazing ideas, hopes, and desires into tangible shape, you must first write them down. They may appear fantastic in your head, but if you don't write them down, you may find yourself running on the fumes of wishful thinking. Simply putting down your goals will help you achieve accomplishment faster and more efficiently, while also reducing stress. Do it today to see greater results!
