Goals: worth the paper they are written on?

Rob in 7Breaths: Written Goals – Another Self Help Myth? has exposed some famous anecdotal evidence for”writing down your goals brings success” as completely made up.

But that doesn’t mean that writing down your goals is not a good to do. Writing down your goals forces you to clarify your goals. And if you don’t know what you’re goals are, how can you achieve them? You might, by good luck or the force of your own unconscious, get there in the end. But why make it hard for yourself?

Writing down your goals is not a magic formula that gets you what you want. It is not enough in itself but it can be a useful tool in helping you get what you want. A shopping list helps you get you what you want from a supermarket. Writing it doesn’t magically put food in the fridge.

So even if writing down our goals helps us to achieve them, will this give us “success”? In the story told about the Yale graduates success was defined purely in monetary terms. The richest = the most successful. If money is your only object in life that might be true. But for most sane people it isn’t. Our relationships, creativity, personal growth, making a positive difference to people around us. These are all important goals.

Don’t let someone else define success for you. Write your own goals – the things that matter to you. Achieving those. That is success.