Goals: Do They Have to be Written?

I found myself in conversation with someone one day regarding the above topic. The person's theory was that even if goals were written, they would not necessarily be achieved. The person was not convinced that writing down goals down would be any more effective than having it stored in one's memory.


Based on the above, I will list why I find writing down goals important.

1. You will be able to see clearly what your intentions and plans are for a particular year, week or even day.
How are you going to know you've reached your destination without a goal. After work, I usually review my goals for the day to see if I've been able to

achieve them and if not assess why I haven't and make plans to see if it can be accomplished on another day.


2. It will help you to focus
It helps you to bring your mind towards that which you are looking to achieve. You have something to fix your mind on and work towards.


3. You can go back and add to the original goals written
If you find yourself achieving goals sooner than you expected, then you can add more goals to your list. That is what even makes it more interesting.


4. Your goals will help you measure your success
An example that I can use here is if I intend to contact 15 potential customers in a month - by crossing off their name each time I make contact, I will be able to see the ones that are left and make plans towards contacting them.

If I do succeed in contacting them all by the end of the month, then that will be the success to show for it.



5. Your written goals are not meant to be rigid
Goals are not set in stone in that they can't be written or amended. You may have started out the year with a plan to move your business a certain way; but then decided to change your course of action due to situations occuring within the industry you are representing. There is no hard and fast rule about this,just change it.


6. They spur you to action
If you find that your written goals have caused you to advance further to your desired location, then of course you will be motivated to take further action to see that you achieve all the goals you've lined up.

On the other hand, it could also have the same effect if you find that none of your goals have been achieved, it could spur you to take action to ensure your goals are met. It will also make you examine the goals to see whether they are realistic.


7. Goals let you know you've "reached your destination".
Once you've accomplished your desired goal, you will know because it's written down for you to see.


Do you have any success story with writing down your goals?

Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Sometimes taking action involves getting out of one's comfort zone in order to achieve goals that appear to be unattainable.

I think I sometimes just hide behind the fact that I'm an introvert. A simple thing like putting a gravatar on my facebook page took ages before I finally did it. Not a big deal to some, but trust me, it was to me!


I have decided to partake in the ultimateblogchallenge.com. This is another way of coming out of my comfort zone and doing something I may not necessarily be comfortable doing, but doing it anyway. This is a challenge spearheaded by two ladies who bear the same name but spelt differently. They are Michelle Shaeffer and Michele Scism.

Something I know I should do away with is perfectionism. I can't remember the number of times I've blamed "perfectionism" for not completing tasks and not achieving one goal or another. I intend to do away with it during the challenge and hopefully not think about it at all afterwards.

So what do I hope to take away from the challenge?

Discipline myself to blog consistently
Finding my blogging voice
Improve upon my writing skills
Gain online visibility
Pick up ghostwriting clients along the way

I think I've run out of excuses not to write now!

Interestingly enough, I read a blog post today called
Get-Out-Of-Your-Own-Way written by Lisbeth Tanz and it kind of summed up almost every conceivable excuse a person can give for not taking action when it comes to blogging. It makes a very interesting read and I would encourage anyone who needs motivation to check it out.

By the end of the next 30 days, I hope I would have improved significantly in my writing and that the difference will be noticed by others as well.