Goal Setting Activity - Goal Planning

Goal setting and goal planning have been preached for years by all the big names in motivational speaking, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and many more. Whether you belive in goal setting or not, the first thing writing out your goals does is to get your mind thinking in the right direction.


Whether it works or not, whether you believe or not is irrelevant. Their was one study that all the famous self help gurus would recite about a study in 1953 at Yale. The story goes like this.. In 1953, researchers surveyed the graduating seniors at Yale to find out how many had specific goals, written down, for their future. 3% was the response. The same researchers went back twenty years later, polled the surviving members of the class and found that: the 3% that had set goals, and written them down, had accumulated more wealth then the other 97% combined!

Some claim this story as the truth, and some claim it to be made up, a myth created by the gurus to show unbiased proof that it does work. True or false, if you talk to successful people in their industry, you will probably find some had set goals, and some did not. The one true thing about setting a goal, and writing it down is this: It sets your mind and body down the right path to accomplish the said goal. It's easier to develop an action plan, when you know where you want to end up. Just like going on a trip to somewhere that you have never been before. If you just get in your car and start driving and hope you'll arrive at your destination, well you may make it, but a destination that would take 8 hours to get to, may end up taking you 15 or 20 hours. Same goes for your plan to succeed in your chosen business. Why take twice as long if you don't have to?

Once you have an end goal set, just work backwards to get your monthly or weekly actions that you will have to take to reach it. If you set a yearly goal of $100,000 in sales, and you sell ABC Widget for $50 each, then work back to find your monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly actions that you will need to take in order to reach $100,000 in sales. $8333 per month, $1923.00/week, $274.00/day, $34.00/hour. Now if you've never made $100,000 before, it may seem a little daunting, but if you work back and see that you only have to average $34/hour, not even 1 ABC Widget, then your mind is more easily convinced, and proceeds on the path to achievement. What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.

Although there may not be any hard proof, such as the Yale study of 1953, setting goals, and writing them down, will help you accomplish almost anything you want. Having a plan and doing the daily actions on a consistant basis, will lead you to success, in whatever end goal you are setting.