The Psychology Of Writing Down Goals - New Tech Northwest 08.11.2022.

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The Psychology Of Writing Down Goals

Brett Greene August 7, 2019

This is a guest post by Rebecca Temsen that was 4rst published here.

There’s a simple trick to make your dreams come true more easily and faster, and it doesn’t cost a lot of time or effort: Writing
down goals.

If you go to any goal-setting workshop, the coordinator will tell you that to achieve the goals you need to write them down. You
can use a list of goals, a vision board, etc. but it’s important is to put them in writing.

It’s important is to put them in writing

Unfortunately, goal-setting workshops are usually a little less forthcoming about the psychology of writing down goals. They say
that it’s something that you have to do, but they rarely answer the question, “Why should you write your goals down?”

That writing out goals works is indisputable. So we do want you to write out your goals. What we will do in this post, however, is
explain why you should.

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Let’s Start With Some Statistics

So, why should you take the extra few steps to write out your goals or create a vision board? How about because a Harvard
Business Study found out the following related to goal-setting:

Eighty-three percent of respondents had no goals.

Fourteen percent of respondents had plans but had not written them down. The study found that this group was ten times
more likely to succeed than those without any goals.
Three percent of respondents had written down their goals. They were three times more likely to succeed than the group
who had some plan in mind.

What this research made clear is that if you want the best possible results, you need to de]ne your goals and then write them
down.

A study by the Dominican University of California took a slightly different stance. They divided participants into ]ve groups.

The ]rst group had to think about their goals, and rate them according to various factors but not write them down. This
group achieved a 43 percent overall success rate or progressed at least part of the way to attaining their goals.
The second group did the same, but this group wrote the goals down.

The third group did the same as the second but also wrote their action commitments down.
The fourth group did all of that, and also shared their action commitments with a friend.

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The fourth group did all of that, and also shared their action commitments with a friend.
The ]nal group did everything the others did, but also sent their friends updates. This group had the highest success rate,
at 76 percent.

What we learn from this study is that writing down your goals, and what actions you take to achieve them, and then sharing these
and your progress with a friend gives you the best chance of success.

Another study, called “The Gender Gap and Goal-Setting” run by Mark Murphy found that all of us need to be much better at
writing our goals down. He went on to say that written goals should include pictures, drawings, etc.

He aimed to make the goal so clear that he could show it to someone else and they’d know what he was trying to achieve. His
point? The goal must be clearly de]ned and written out. He found that less than one-]fth of respondents put that kind of detail
into writing their goals.

Why is a vivid written description so important? It helps you to picture your goal and this, in turn, makes you up to 1.4 times more
likely to succeed than someone who didn’t write anything down.

That’s a 1.4 times higher chance of success by just committing your goals to paper! I’ll bet you’re already reaching for a pen and
paper to get those goals down, aren’t you?

That’s a 1.4 times higher chance of success by just committing your goals to paper!

So now we know the statistics, let’s have a look at why writing goals down improves your chance of success so drastically.

What Writing Does For Your Brain

When you were at school, you no doubt took copious notes during class. Why? Because it helped with recall. But why does it help
so much?

There are two basic levels that writing occurs on: encoding and external storage. Now, external storage is the actual piece of
paper that reminds you of the goal you’ve written. You’ll put up your list of goals somewhere so you’ll see them every day to be
reminded of them daily.

That’s part of what made your note-taking such a successful memory aid in school. You could refer to the notes and instantly

remember the lesson.

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Encoding is where things get a lot more interesting. Encoding is what happens in the brain when we see something, and the
information gets transferred to the hippocampus for analysis. This part of the brain is where the brain decides what is important
to store in the long-term memory and what can it can discard.

In the decision-making process, the brain will have to sift through a lot of information. How does it know if something is
important to you? Well, if your mind sees that it is something that you have written down, it will assign greater importance to it. As
a result, it is more likely to sink in and be remembered.

Neuropsychologists call this the “generation effect” and have found that people have better recall for information that they’ve
created themselves than for something that they’ve read. So, if you read a travel guide to Egypt, for example, and think about
going there, your brain might remember.

But, if you then take that travel guide and rewrite the salient points in your own words, your brain knows that this information is
more important than the information that you just read. The mind understands that you want to focus more on it and so will be
more inclined to recall it later.

You can boost this effect even more by adding in pictures, creating links between related goals, etc. Maybe you can draw on an
Egyptian cag, or ]nd a piece of papyrus to add to the sheet. That way, not only can you engage your sense of sight, but also your
sense of smell and touch.

And, when it comes to boosting recall, the more senses that you can engage, the better.

Why Recall Is Important For Goals?

When you create a goal, you want to focus on it and work toward achieving it. By searing the details of that goal into your brain,
you are telling it how important that goal is to you.

As a result, your brain will work on ]nding ways to make that goal a reality, even when you’re not consciously thinking about it. So,
while we generally easily remember our goals, writing them down ensures that we don’t forget a single detail, and this can be
essential to whether we achieve them or not.

Writing Helps You Clarify Your Goals

Just as important, however, writing your goals out helps you see them in black and white. This added layer forces you think out
your goals more clearly and de]ne them more absolutely. Once you see them on paper, you can start to tweak them.

As you write out your goals, you will quickly see how speci]c they are and whether or not they could be better de]ned. So, that
goal to “lose some weight” becomes a ]rm, “lose ten pounds.”

Writing Leaves No Wriggle Room

Let’s say that you’ve decided you want to lose a pound a month and you resolve to do so in your mind. Things start well, but
maybe your motivation starts to lag a bit, and you get forgetful. Did you start the year saying a pound a month, or was it that you
wanted to lose six pounds?

Or maybe that you just wanted to lose a bit of extra weight. If you haven’t written down your goals, it can be easy to fudge the
lines a bit when your motivation cags. When they’re there in front of you in black and white, however, you are not going to get
away with trying to wriggle out of the goal.

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Written Goals Are A Constant Reminder

The other advice that you may have read about when it comes to goal-setting is to post the goals up somewhere that you’ll see
them every day. We want to change that up a bit. Sure, do put them up in a visible spot every day, but don’t leave them in the same
place for more than a week or so at a time.

Why? Once your brain gets accustomed to seeing the goals in that place, it’s going to stop noticing them. And that’s not going to
do you much good.

What we suggest is to move the goal sheet around every week so that it is continually catching your eye.

Another great tip that we ]nd extremely useful is to place a copy of the written goal sheet in our diary. We stick ours in the front
of the journal, and every time we open it up for the day, we read through the list. Seeing goals every day helps reaerm them in our
minds.

An alternative is to clip the list into your diary for the next day. That way, when you open your log the following day, the list is
there. Read it through, and then transfer it over to the next page.

If you still ]nd that this is not working for you, another alternative is to take a look at your goals on a daily or weekly basis and
write them out again in a small notebook. Technically, you could use a piece of scrap paper, but a notebook will re-emphasize the
importance of each goal.

Do you ever remember writing lines out at school? We had a few sessions like that at school, and, even though it was a long time
ago, we can still recall what we had to write out.

Copying out your goals every day, alternate day, or even once a week is a little bit of a schlep, but it won’t take you long. And, while
you’re doing it, you are sure that you are reminding yourself of what those goals are.

And, of course, you are reinforcing the importance of the goals for the brain. The subconscious will think, “Wow, my conscious
self is going on about these goals, they must be important.”

Reviews Are Important

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Another reason for writing down your goals is that it makes it easier to review them and see your progress. Reading that you want
to lose ten pounds every morning helps you to set your intention for that day more clearly.

You’ll want to make healthier choices, and see where you can improve.

Cross It Off The List

The ]nal reason for writing out your goals is that you then get the satisfaction of crossing them off the list. You no doubt know
how satisfying it is to cross items off a to-do list. Now take that feeling and multiply many times over when it comes to meeting a
goal you have been working toward.

That’s A Wrap

All in all, writing out your goals makes sense from many different perspectives. It:

Highlights the importance of the goal to your brain, and that allows your mind to stay primed for opportunities that might
help you achieve your aims.
Ensures that you properly clarify each goal and that you understand it completely.
Makes it possible for you to visualize your goals more clearly, especially if you combine the words with actual images and
other sensory cues.
Leaves no room for misunderstandings or errors at a later stage.
Acts as a reminder of what your goals are, goals you can easily review along the way.
Gives you the opportunity to cross your goals off the list as you achieve them.

Overall, there is a saying that is most apt here. “A goal that is not written down is nothing more than a wish.” Make sure that you
record each goal, and then you have a clear picture of what you want to achieve.

It’s that simple – write out your goals, and review them regularly for the best chance of achieving them.

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