Last night I was indulging in a little TV time, watching Offspring (one of my favourite easy watching shows), and a conversation between Jimmy and his ‘new’ brother Will caught my attention. Jimmy asks Will if he thinks he will have kids one day. Will replies, “Well, it’s in my 10 year plan…” and Jimmy looks confused for a second and asks – “Wait, you’ve got a 10 year plan?”
Being a big fan of personal development myself (and having studied A LOT of both self education and professional development programs) I do have a 10 year plan – and a 20 year plan! After so long in the personal development space I just thought that was normal behaviour… and everyone set goals and had long terms plans or at least a basic idea of where they wanted to be in the future.
How wrong I was, it seems!
It is estimated that less than 20% of people actually write their goals down… and even less actually have a plan to achieve those goals. The simple act of putting pen to paper and writing your goals down (not typing them) works together with your brain to help you achieve success.
Here’s how it works from a neuroscience perspective.
Firstly, when you write down your goals and plans for the future you can re-read them any time – repetition is the key here. Writing improves the way our brain encodes information and helps to let it know what’s important and what’s not.
On another level, the part of our brain called the reticular activating system or RAS (sometimes referred to as the attention centre of the brain) works via our sub conscious mind – yet the beauty is that we can actually program this part of our brain to focus on what is going to work for us! The RAS works constantly whether or not we program it work with us… so why not set some amazing goals and get that RAS working for you!
Here’s an example of how the RAS can work even when you don’t particularly mean it to be…. I remember when I was pregnant, I kept seeing other pregnant women around – I mean seriously… was every second woman pregnant at the same time that I was? No… it just seemed that way because that’s what my RAS was focusing on. Have you ever been in the market to buy a new car and you’ve got your heart set on say a Black Landcruiser… you then start seeing Black Landcruisers EVERYWHERE!
So what kind of goals should you have written down?
Personally putting my goals together took me roughly a week… It’s worth the time. I have 20 year goals – written down as if it’s 20 years time and I’m describing my life and experiences. 10 year goals, 5 year goals, 2 year goals, 1 year goals, 90 day goals, 30 day goals and then a weekly breakdown of what I need to achieve in order to meet my 30 day goals. For me, it works the best to start with my 20 year goals and go backwards – but however you do it doesn’t matter – as long as you DO IT!
My goals are laminated and I revisit them regularly (weekly at a minimum, but generally daily). This way I’m telling my RAS what to focus – I have a clear path forward and I know the action steps that must take place for me to achieve what I want down the track. Doing goals this way also helps to see what could happen if I don’t take any action at all…
Brings me to my final thought for this post… ACTION.
Let’s face it, goals are pointless if dont take any action towards achieving them!
What’s the action you need to take today to get you one step closer to where you need to be in 20 years time!