It’s an old saying but studies continuously confirm that people who write down their goals are significantly more likely to achieve them. Experts believe that it has something to do with how the brain works. You’ve heard of right brained and left brained people, well, there’s something to that, scientifically speaking.
The left brain is analytical and orderly, you use it for logic, sequencing, and math. The right brain is intuitive and creative, you use it for imagination, daydreaming, and artistic expression. Clearly both sides are needed to set and achieve goals. You have to have imagination and creativity to conjure an alternative to your current state but also need logic and order to make that idea come to fruition.
How does writing them down help?
Somehow, the act of writing things down connects both sides of the brain in ways science hasn’t quite figured out yet. For some, it may be that seeing their goals physically in front of them is the first step in making them real. Others believe that connecting the two halves of the brain through writing commits what was written down into the subconscious, which can help compel you to act.
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” — Albert Einstein
It works
I started writing down goals in high school. Stealing sheets of paper from dad’s IBM dot matrix printer and borrowing thick markers from mother’s bingo purse, I would fill them with drawings of digital stopwatches. Smack in the middle of them in giant 6″ numbers were ever-decreasing target times I needed to hit at all of my upcoming swim meets to qualify for states and land a college swimming scholarship.
Initially, mom and dad weren’t thrilled that my childhood bedroom walls were plastered with a succession of poorly-drawn posters. But they came around as each was crossed off with giant green checkmarks, meet after meet, race after race, as I inched towards qualifying for the state finals in my sophomore year and a college scholarship in my junior year.
I’ve been doing some form of this ever since. New Years resolutions, a bucket list of life goals, all achieved because I’ve been writing them down then crossing them off.
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