Studies show that putting your SMART goals into writing and reviewing them regularly will increase your chances of success. In fact, some studies show that you are as much as 42% more likely to follow through with your goals if you write them down.
Writing your goals down will help you get a clear picture of your plan and what you want to accomplish. Logging your goals will also help motivate you to complete the tasks needed in order for success of your goal. Frequently reviewing what you’ve written will aid in reminding you of your plan, as well as remind you of your “why,” in turn, boosting your motivation to keep progressing toward your goal.
Writing your goals down as you set them; will help your brain encode the plan, further solidifying your goal. The mere act of writing an idea down makes it more likely you will remember it. This is the reason college students take notes in lectures, note taking provides a much higher probability of remembering the information. Similarly, when you draft your goal in writing, you have a better chance of success. After writing out your goal, be sure to place it somewhere that you can see it easily. Places like on the fridge, on your phone, on a mirror, at your desk are all excellent areas, where you can easily visually access your goal. Seeing the words you wrote out serves as a reminder and as motivation to continue with your efforts.
Not only will you be reminded of your goal by visually seeing the words written, you should also take the time for an active review of your goal. Regularly, actively reviewing your written goal will increase your chances of successfulness. An active review of your goal should include contemplating the reasons behind your motivation of the goal, your “why.”
Thinking about the reasons you set the particular goal will boost your motivation by reminding you why the goal matters to you, why you set it and what you expect to gain from it. Reviewing your goal will aid in renewed purpose and incentive, ultimately bumping up your likelihood of success.
Countless studies that find that writing out your goals produces higher success rates. Placing the words you’ve written in an easily accessible spot and reviewing them often will also help ensure that you follow through with the SMART goals you set for yourself.
Goal Setting Tools to Help You Succeed
You can use an old-fashioned paper and pen to make and set your goals, but what’s the fun in that? Today there are so many wonderful online tools and software that can help make goal setting fun and easy. When something is fun and easy, you’re more likely to stick to it long enough to actually achieve the success you desire.
1. Goal-Buddy – Using this cloud-based software you can name, set, and manage your goals easily. It leads you step-by-step through questions for what your goals are so that they are S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely) goals. Then you can use the system to track your goals through milestones that you set as the days go by.
Link – http://www.goal-buddy.com/
2. Mint – If you need to get control over your finances, want to set up goals such as establishing a six-month emergency savings account, start a business and other goals, you can use this software to track your financial success and projections.
Link – https://www.mint.com/
3. Basecamp – This is really a project management system, but any goal has to have actionable steps involved or milestones and tasks to take to reach success. You can use Basecamp for any type of actionable steps and it will even email you a reminder to do the task. This can work with your business life or personal life.
Link – http://www.basecamp.com/
4. Google Calendar – Where were we before Google Calendar came alone? Unorganized, for sure. This is such a handy calendar that you can use for the most important areas of your life. Be it family, personal, financial or physical – you can set your goals and work your way back inserting actionable steps and tasks to do each day. You can then let it email you a daily task list so you never leave anything out.
Link – http://www.google.com/calendar
5. VisonBoard.me – This is basic vision board software that you can use to create your vision board then print it out. You can also use something like Pinterest to create a vision board if you need to be fancier about it. It’s fun to create a vision board, paste it on your wall, fridge or in public so that you can see the reality of your dreams in person.
Link – http://www.visionboard.me/
6. Lifetick – If you want a very in-depth goal setting software, this is it. It helps you traverse the four important areas where you should be setting goals and then view how they overlap and work with each other. This software helps you define your core values, and develop S.M.A.R.T. goals as well as track everything.
Link – https://www.lifetick.com/
7. GoalsOnTrack – This software is a lot like Lifetick but has features that help you “chunk down” any goal into reasonable and easy-to-follow steps. Their whole idea is that you want to do less but get more. This software’s features encompass the 80/20 rule and puts it to work for goal setting and achieving.
Link – http://www.goalsontrack.com/
8. Goalscape – If you like to visualize your goals in pictures, charts, and graphs then you might like Goalscape. You’ll create a kind of wheel with your goal in the middle and everything you need to do to reach the goal will circle it. So you can see it in one glance.
Link – http://www.goalscape.com/
9. BizOnTrack – If you need software to help you set business goals and team goals, then this is the software you want to try. It will help you and your team work together to ensure that everything stays organized and tasks are done on time. The statuses of tasks are able to be reordered and marketed accomplished to help you see where you are in any goal.
Link – http://www.bizontrack.com/
10. Smart Goals Templates – If you like templates, these are some free goal setting templates that are based on filling in the blanks for your goals. They will help you go over the various goals setting steps needed to achieve results in both your personal life and career and business life.
Link – http://www.smart-goals-guide.com/free-goal-setting-worksheets-forms-and-templates.html
Whichever type of software (if any) you feel you need to use for goal setting and goal realization is up to you. The important thing is that you visualize the results of any goal, write it out, and then take steps toward achieving the goal.
