Friday, July 07, 2006

Achieving your goals: Scoring and the power of the pen

As France and Italy prepare to square off in the final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup this weekend, I thought I'd write about achieving goals.

You're a bright, determined person. So you've got goals in life, right?

Want to learn a secret about turning your goals into a reality?

It's very simple. But to explain, let's go back in time to the 1950s, when researchers asked a bunch of Harvard University graduates about their goals. As you might expect, almost all of them had goals. But only 3 percent of them actually wrote them down. Fast-forward 30 years to a follow-up survey. And guess what? The researchers found that those 3 percent had amassed as much wealth as the other 97 percent put together.

Have I got your attention yet? Tempted to write any goals down?

Because most people don't have real goals - they only have dreams or hopes that they wish might come true. Truly driven individuals have goals that they write down, talk about, and make solid plans about. Because the act of writing goals down helps people to think them through, helps them to analyse and plan the steps it would take to turn them into a reality.

Keep that wealthy 3 percent of the Harvard boys and girls in mind. And get writing.