Have you heard that you should write your goals down, but don’t really understand why? It is easy to get demotivated with writing your goal down month after month if you don’t understand the benefits. Keep on reading to find out 6 reasons why you should write your goals down.
6 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD WRITE YOUR GOALS DOWN
1 – It helps you to remember your goals
All too often people set a goal and then forget about it. You only have to ask a few people in February what their New Year Resolutions were and you’ll realise how quickly we forget our goals. The fact is life happens and what seemed so important just a few weeks ago can quickly be forgotten. That is why writing your goals down is so important. Writing your goals down helps to ensure that your goals aren’t forgotten, but even more than that, it helps to ensure that you keep your goals top of mind.
Find out How to keep your goals front of mind here.
2 – It allows you to see your growth
One of the beautiful things about writing your goals down regularly is being able to look back and see your growth. This can happen in two ways. You can see your growth in relation to how the goals you are setting are getting bigger and bigger. For example, maybe at first, you had a goal to be an intern for your dream company and then a few years later you are aiming to be a manager, head of, or director.
The other way writing down your goals allows you to see growth is the progress towards a specific goal. Some goals take years! Saving a deposit, moving up the career ladder, generating a certain revenue in a business, running a marathon under a certain time. All of these goals don’t usually happen in weeks. They normally take months or years and whilst writing your goal down when you still haven’t achieved it can be demoralising it also offers an opportunity to think about where you are now versus where you were when you first set the goal.
3 – It helps you to clarify and refine your goals
Some goals will be crystal clear in your head, but others will need some clarifying or refining, and writing down your goals helps with that process. Sometimes the process of writing something down and seeing it in black and white will be enough to make you realise something isn’t quite right. Other times if you are writing your goals down and using the SMART or SMARTER framework the process of trying to make your goals fit one of those frameworks will force you to refine your goals.
4 – It allows you to celebrate
When you write down your goals you have something to refer back to. It is too easy to achieve a goal and move on to setting the next. But when you have physical evidence of having set the goals months or even years before it helps to reinforce how big the achievement is and that it truly is something to celebrate.
5 – It helps you to keep focused
If your goals are mid-term to long-term goals then it can be hard to stay focused. With lots of day-to-day demands, it is easy for your time to be taken up with things that are urgent and timely, and the actions that need to be taken for your goals keep on getting pushed back and back. When you write down your goals regularly not only are your goals top of mind, but you’ll have more motivation to achieve them. This will help you to keep focused and realise even if you are only meant to be doing a few small things they are contributing to achieving the bigger goal.
6 – It increases your chances of achieving your goals
According to Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, writing down your goals regularly makes you 42% more likely to achieve your goals. Now that is likely to do with a number of reasons already mentioned such as keeping your goal top of mind (you need to remember your goal to achieve it) and helping you to keep focused. However, there isn’t another powerful thing at play when you write your goals down – your brain.
Every day our brains are taking in so much information and it has to decide what to pay attention to. When you are regularly writing down your goals you are helping your brain to realise that this is something important to you and therefore if it comes across something related it should pay attention.
It’s the same principle as the second someone mentions a specific type of car or colour of car you start seeing it everywhere, whereas the day before you were none of the wiser.
That’s it! You now know 6 reasons why you should write your goals down.
By now you can hopefully see the value in writing your goals and might be thinking “How often should I write my goals down?”. My answer is simple the more you write your goals down the better.
Many successful people talk about writing their goals down daily and a great way to do this is by including it in your morning or night routine.
If you don’t already have a morning routine you can find out how to make a morning routine to set yourself up for success here.
In the comments, I would love to hear about your current goals and how often you are going to try and write them down.
You might also be interested in reading:
