Week One. Day One: 3 %

Diving into Music Success in Nine Weeks today brought to my attention the astounding fact that only an estimated 3% of all people have their long term goals written down.  Here's an excerpt from a fascinating article by John Lloyd that I found on Ariel Hyatt's advice column, "Sound Advice:" 

What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School (a bestselling book) talks about a research study that was conducted at Harvard between 1979 and 1989:

“In 1979, the MBA graduates were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?”

Only 3 percent had clear written goals and action plans to achieve them.

Thirteen percent of the graduates had goals, but they were not in writing.

The other 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

In 1989, a decade later, the researchers again interviewed the students of that class. Surprisingly, they discovered that the 13 percent, who had goals that were not in writing, were earning on average twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all.

The truly amazing finding was that the 3 percent of students, who had written, clear goals when they left Harvard, were earning over ten times as much, on average, as the other 97 percent together.

There are many other similar recorded research studies that seem to conclude with approximately the same results - that only 3 percent of people set clear, written goals and action plans for their achievement.

These people clearly achieve far more success and happiness in their lives and careers than others. Goal setting ability is the skill that separates these top performers from the rest.”

Here are a few tips from Ariel on Goal Setting:

1.) "THIS IS A GAME; YOU CAN CHANGE THE RULES AS YOU GO."  In other words, goals are not a bining contract.  They should be used as a guide and if you need to alter them as you go, feel free.

2.) "DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP!"  Be patient.  There may be days where you mess up or get frustrated, but self criticism gets in the way accomplishing your dreams.

3.) "FIVE SUCCESSES EACH DAY."  Write down five successes that you have each day.  According to T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, writing down your successes trains your mind to focus on the positive, eliminating self criticism.

So my friends, without further ado, I'll conclude this post with my five successes for the first Monday of the Year:

1.) Got the oil changed and broken tail light fixed on my car.

2.) Made dinner early and stuck it in the crock pot.

3.) Wrote two blog posts!

4.) Opted to get my broken computer repaired instead of buying a new one.

5.) Read a story to my son's kindergarten class.

Pretty simple, I know.  But sometimes I forget about all the good things I do in a day and only see snapshots of failures.  I think I'm going to like this.  Feel free to share with me any of your small successes for today.  I would like to read those very much.