“Research shows that 95 percent of us don’t spend time writing down our goals, but out of the 5 percent that have, 95 percent achieve their goals. In 1953 at Yale University, 3 percent of the graduating class set specific, written goals for their life. By 1975(22 years later) that same 3 percent had accomplished more than the other 97 percent put together.” – Be All You Can Be by John C. Maxwell
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When I first saw this I was quite amazed, because it’s true. For a little over a year or two I’ve made it a habit to plan, 1 week ahead, 2 weeks ahead, 1 month ahead. I’d often fall short of a few of these goals at the end of the month. But the more I did it, the more sense it made. It all started a little over a year ago. This year I’ve gotten into planning 6 months, to 1 year, to 10 years ahead. I read a quote that changed the reason why I got up in the morning and that turned me into a compulsive planner: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Probably one of the simplest quotes I’ve ever heard but extremely powerful. Ever since I’ve taken planning very seriously, I’d make sure I schedule at least two weeks ahead of time and write out what I wanted to achieve at the end of the 60 days. It wasn’t overcomplicated, and it only took 15-30 minutes every two weeks to sit down with a pen and paper.
Five percenters are compulsive goal setters!
Goal setting is a habit that you need to practice constantly. Goal setting shouldn’t be like New Years resolutions that are broken a day after they’re made. Or written down once a year and forgotten about until the New Year rolls by. To have an real effect, goal setting has to be a weekly or even bi-weekly thing. If you write goals on the weekend and forget them a few days later, it means you need to review them more often. Post them on your wall, read them before you go to bed, and when you get up. Let you goals consume you, make them your life. Let your goals become your autopilot so that every action you take will ultimately be geared toward achieving them.
Funny Money trailer
The 95% don’t do it right.
Goal setting in itself is something that very few people do. This is partly why most people aren’t highly successful, because most people get out the bed in the morning going to work just to survive and put food on the table. Any goals they do make, are either not written down, forgotten about, or never taken seriously enough to where they can make it happen. They’ll think, “ah this is silly” or “I don’t have time” or “plan for WHAT?” The majority just misses the whole point. How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m going to quit smoking.” or “I don’t drink any more…” and then three days later it’s all back where it started…
If nothing was holding you back what would you accomplish?
This may come as a shock, nothing really IS holding you back accept for yourself. But you may say, what about my kids, or what about my job or my credit card payments or this or that? You have more control over things around you than you think. Most of our problems are within our circle of influence, we DO have the ability to control them.
Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We live in a country where we can be stupid with our money and cry about it later. We also live in a country where we’re so comfortable that we still have time to complain bad off we are. As soon as things get tough we think it’s the end of the world. Of course there’s obstacles, but if success were easy it wouldn’t be worth our time.
If you aim high and miss, you could have done worse … by aiming low and hitting.
If you’re going to aim, aim high. Life’s too short to always focus on small goals. I always liked what Donald Trump said about thinking big, “If you’re going to think anyways, you might as well think big.” If you’re life vision is to have a modest lifestyle, get a degree and get a good job you don’t need to set goals. The point is to reach past the norm, so we can get closer to reaching our potential and to actually go places in life. Do high net worth families become wealthy if they don’t know what they’re aiming for? Of course not. Did Boeing build the 747 just for the heck of it? No! The 747 could have bankrupt Boeing, but they knew what they were after, and they did it. Goal setting has to be something that challenges you to do your best, to expand your comport zone and to make you a stronger person. The really rich people, the highly successful, the high achievers, the top performing athletes and companies that last centuries all had had BHAGs(Big Hairy Audacious Goals). They practically live and breath goals. Goals need to become a way of life. Something that drives you every day, gets you excited and keeps you awake at night.
The very last part in setting goals is of course ACTION! Action is the primary factor that separates the 95% who are lousy at goal setting and the 5% who cant live without them. Goals become sick and eventually die unless you set them in motion.
So the strategy is:
- Set large goals(ones that expand your comfort zone)
- Write them down and review them 2-3 times a week.(so you don’t loose sight of them)
- Work hard to achive them on a daily basis.(setting is worthless, without the doing)
Remember, 95% of us can get motivated every once in a while, but only the 5% know how to motivate themselves constantly day after day, night after night. Have you got what it takes to be a five percenter? If not, make it your next goal:D
Until peer pressure is strong enough and until Twitter has grown to where it’s more noticeable it may have a bit of difficulty attracting younger people.
