These two tips will dramatically increase your chances of achieving your goals.
We all know the drill, with the new year inevitably comes reflection. Most of us will aspire to create goals that center around our personal and professional growth. I’ve probably gone through this process almost every year of my life since I was in my early teens.
As we enter the 2020’s, here are two simple, science-backed tips that will significantly increase your chances of achieving your goals.
Tip 1
The Tip: Sit down and take a moment to recall how the year started. Think back to January 1st, 2019. What were your weaknesses, what were your desires, what were you hoping to get out of 2019? Most of us can do a fair job of coming up with a few things on the fly, but it takes a few minutes to contemplate and thoroughly recall what those things were.
Science: When we learn or experience something, we form connections between neurons in our brain. The relationship between these neurons grows stronger as we are exposed more to that particular thing. Chances are, most of what we accomplished in 2019 is a distant memory for us. It’s been up to 12 months, and a lot has happened in 2019. Our lives are busy, and most of us probably didn’t take much time throughout the year to reflect upon our individual and team wins. Taking a moment to refresh our memory creates a stronger memory of the victories we achieved in 2019. You are building stronger connections between the neurons around those memories. It’s a great time to celebrate, and we all deserve the chance to reflect on the meaningful victories from the past year. Build stronger memories of those wins that you accomplished. It’s well-deserving, and it’s healthy. It sets us up for an optimistic start to 2020.
Tip 2
The Tip: Write down your goals for 2020. Sure, it’s hard to do. However, there is compelling evidence of the power around taking a few minutes to formalize your future aspirations.
Science:
Ok, first, let’s talk about the study that never happened. Many people quote a well known Harvard study. The story goes that back in 1979, Harvard initiated what would be a decades-long study around what drives success. Back in 1979, the graduating class was interviewed, and it was found that 3% of the class actually wrote down their goals. Twenty years later, it was found that 3% of the graduates that wrote down their goals were earning ten times that of the group that had no clear goals. That would be astounding and very impressive.
Unfortunately, this study never happened. It’s become an oft-quoted study that reinforces the value of why you should write down your goals. While this scientific study never occurred, the concept is still accurate.
That said, here is the real science behind the power of writing down your goals. No, it would be best if you didn’t do it because of a mythical study that sounds impressive, but never actually happened. The real value in writing your goals down is a biological function called Encoding. Encoding is the process by which the ideas we perceive travel to the hippocampus. Once in the hippocampus, ideas are analyzed and sorted as to whether they’ll be stored in our long-term memory or whether they get trashed. When we write things down, ideas have a much higher chance of being filed in the “long-term memory.” When you initially think of the goal or idea, that is 1 impression. When you then write that down on paper, that becomes another impression. There is a “generation effect,” which improves the chances of something being remembered, purely because of its repetition and the ways neurons build strong memories through “encoding.”
Here’s to a wildly successful 2020!