Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.
Tony Robbins
Goal setting is the secret to unlocking your success in life.
But the majority of adults do not set goals.
What most people do is that they set New Year resolutions.
When you look at the number of people who achieve their New Year resolutions…
You’ll be shocked to know that less than 8 people out of a 100 people who make New Year resolutions achieve them
A study published in the psychology journal by the University of Scranton concluded that: …
people who explicitly make new year resolutions are ten times more likely to achieve their goals that those who don’t explicitly make resolutions
The moral of this study is that it is how you make and go about achieving New Year resolutions.
What many people don’t know is that a New Year resolution wish.
But to give energy and life to your wish…you must make them concrete, not abstract
Why? Your mind is an engine of creative problem-solving that works with visual images.
We think in images. For example, if I said something like, ” don’t go out to the street because of their danger. Do you think you’ll get it?
Now assuming I said, “Don’t go out to the streets because there is a stray lion that has killed two persons on the street.” Would you still go out? Got it
To move from wishing and hoping to achieve your dreams, you must set goals.
The reason goal setting works is that it is an active process
In goal setting, you do what I call Be-do- have
The first step is you visualize what you want to accomplish. This step is the dreaming part of achieving a goal.
Visualizing your goals is passive and only gains life when you take action to crystallize your vision into something tangible.
Most people stop dreaming about what they want. They never act on bringing their dreams to come true.
The best way to make any dream you want to fulfill come true is by goal setting.
You see, the reason 92 percent of adults in America who make New Year resolutions fail is that they fail to take definite steps to achieve what they wish for at the beginning of the year.
What separates goal setting from New Year resolution is that in goal setting, you make a wish and set a deadline to achieve your wish
That is why goal setting has power and works.
Let me explain how the very act of taking action helps to make goal setting powerful.
The first thing in goal setting is that you write down a list of things you want to achieve
This step is compelling because there is a connection between writing down a task and your brain.
Writing down your goals is like placing ” an order” in the universe about what you want.
In addition, you create a pathway in your subconscious mind that allows it to start working automatically on your goals.
When you set goals, you align your values with what you want to achieve.
Studies have shown that for a person to change…it must come from within the person.
When you set goals, you are creating a plan to achieve something that truly reflects who you are on the inside.
The next reason goal setting works is that once a goal can be seen (visualized). The more you can visualize your goals and rewrite them…the higher your chances of achieving them
The other reason I think goal setting works is that your subconscious mind homes on achieving your goals.
Why? I believe that because you have communicated to your subconscious mind that your dreams are essential…your subconscious mind works relentlessly to bring them alive.
Earl Nightingale, the bestselling author of the motivational classic The Strangest Secrets, said the secret to failure lies in how you think.
When you set goals, you align your thinking with your values. The result is that because you are clear about what you want, you’ll indeed have them.
The bottom line about why goal setting work is that goals are dreams with a deadline. When you set a goal, you move from wishing and hoping that your dreams come true…to reaching them and living them.