Goal Setting -- It Doesn't Work By Itself

In telling people about The Secret, a number have mentioned the Tony Robbins tapes. I listened to them years ago too and read 'Awakening The Giant Within' -- i'm a big fan of his still. Here's one comment about them that made me think a little more about the usefulness of having goals.

...there is a part in one of the tapes where he says that in 1953, someone took a survey of all the graduating students from Yale and out of all the grads that year, only 3% wrote down their goals. Then 20 years later, they did another survey of these students and found out that the 3% who had wrote down their goals were the most successful in life and in fact, their combined worth was worth more then the 97% who didn't write their goals down...

i've read that that story is fictitious but whether it is or isn't, goal setting doesn't work by itself as the story implies. i've written many goals down myself and it is just insufficient. i tend to write goals down in January and then i put them where i'll see them every day. what happens? they become invisible to me... i don't notice them for 6 months at a time and when i do, i think "oh,!@#%, i'm not doing much about that!".

what works? probably a much more active process. If you're running a business, it's a rigorous program like the Rockefeller Habits which uses daily huddles and quarterly planning meetings, quarterly themes, or profit sharing tied to specific goals. In a word, it's PROCESS. Having goals without process is hot air. in my life, instead of writing goals down, i get better results from talking about my goals and promising to do at least one thing every day towards achieving a goal or dedicating several months to a theme. At LatPro, we're embarking on Verne Harnish's Rockefeller Habits and I'll report the results here from time to time.