Writing Down Your Business Goals is Essential

When setting your business goals, it is a good idea to write them down. Not just because it’s easy to forget, there’s a lot more to it, in this blog, you will discover some significant reasons you should write them down. I want to share my thoughts on why it’s essential to write your goals down and hopefully inspire you to do so with your own goals from now on if you aren't already. By the way, this works for any goal, not just the business ones 😉.

The simple act of setting a goal, even if it’s just in your mind, doubles your chances of success. That’s a pretty big deal in itself. If you take it a step further and actually write those goals down, you’re ten times as likely to succeed. Read that last line again, please. That’s right…you can increase your chances of making it by 1,000%. That’s mind-blowing!

There are a few different mental and psychological processes going on here that start to give us a glimpse into why it is so important and effective to write our goals down. First, it’s a lot easier to remember something we’ve written down. You’ve experienced this first hand with your grocery list. When you make a mental list of 10 or 15 things, you’re likely to forget about half of them when you get to the store. If you write out the list on the other hand and then end up forgetting it on the counter, you will remember the vast majority of the items you needed. Consider the fact that information has to be moved from one area of the brain to another to turn it from thoughts into written words on a page. Encoding is also involved, which is the process of transforming internal thoughts and external events into short-term and long-term memory. All of this helps you retain and store the information better. It’s likely why we students take notes during lectures in college.

Last but not least, you have something you can regularly review when you write down your goals, which adds another layer of cognitive processing and increases your chances of success even further. Sadly, only a very small percentage of people take the time to review and evaluate their goals regularly. The ones that do are some of the most successful and highest achieving people out there. In other words, it’s something we should all do.

To recap, start by setting smart goals. Write them down in as much detail as possible. Set aside some time to review them regularly. It could be weekly or even daily. Give it a try for the upcoming quarter. Set yourself a goal. Be specific. The goal could be finally creating that first paid product or adding an extra $500 to your bottom line. Decide by when you’ll reach your goal and how you plan to get there. Write it all down and look at it every morning. These steps will help you stay on track and make time in your busy day to work on making progress towards your goal.