Proven New Research Will Improve Goal Achievement By 78%

By Damien Parker | January 6, 2015

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New Year’s resolutions follow a predictable pattern. We “think” about a worthwhile goal, be it career, financial or lifestyle, we commit to it for a while whilst its novel, and then it slowly fades into oblivion…only to be resurrected the following year with the same flourish of initial exuberance!

Almost certainly, the culprits behind this pattern of failure or non-achievement are to be found in the “big five”.

Specifically, an absence of:

There isn’t too much new in the above which hasn’t been covered by the tens of thousands of books, products and seminars devoted to the subject of goal setting and achievement; included in this plethora of information on this topic are a number of my own products.

Like most other authors and educators on the subject, I did quote the famous 1953 Yale University “research” which pushed the virtues of committing goals to writing.

As I recollect it, only 3% of the 1953 Yale graduating class had specific written goals for the future. Twenty years later, that 3% was said to be earning a whopping 10 times that of the group who had no clear goals. Gulp! Now if that isn’t enticing enough to commence writing out goals, I don’t know what is.

The only trouble is that this so-called “study” is bunk – confirmed by Yale University itself in fairly recent times. It was merely an “urban myth”, yet, the general thrust and direction of that “study” held much merit, albeit unable to be quantified analytically.

Thank goodness for Dr Gail Matthews, clinical psychologist at Dominican University of California…she has saved my bacon and that of thousands of writers/educators touting the “1953 Yale University” myth.

In recent times Gail set out to prove the value of incremental steps between “goal setting” and “goal achievement” and she has done so analytically.

Her controlled study commenced with 267 participants from a wide-ranging career background and spread over a large number of countries. Ironically, only 149 participants completed the study proving yet again, that commitment is crucial. Hey, did that 44% who failed to complete fall for the “New Year resolution” phenomena?

Regardless, that “band of 145” who completed the project give us great insight into the individual steps involved in “goal achievement” because Gail had broken them into five separate groups, each with specific defined tasks. These ranged from just “thinking about goals” to “think about them – write them down – prepare action commitments – share them with a supportive friend – be accountable to that friend with progress reports”.

Here is how the survey results panned out:

Action Steps

GA* Score

Think about goals

4.28

Think + commit goals to writing

6.08

Think + write + formulate action commitments

5.08

Think + write + action commitments + send goals and action commitments to a supportive friend

6.41

Think + write + action commitments + supportive friend provide supportive friend with a weekly progress report(accountability)

7.6
   

GA = Goal Achievement

  

The conclusions to this study were as follows:

The positive effect of written goals has now been conclusively demonstrated.

The positive effect of commitment via committing to a friend has been proved.

The positive effect of accountability via the provision of progress reports has been proved.

Now, ever the marketer, here is my spin on this report so as to make it blazingly obvious:

Do you want to be 42% more assured of goal achievement? Then write it down!

Do you want to give yourself a 78% greater chance of achieving your goal?

Then write it down, formulate your action steps, share your goals with a supportive friend and commit to be accountable to that friend on a regular basis.

At last, the numbers are in. Move over Yale University, the Dominican University in California is the new “goal achievement” authority and reference.

What does this mean to you?

If you fail to properly start a new goal, you probably lacked commitment to the process in the first place. Whenever my clients set a goal, I ask two questions of them:

How badly do you want it?

What are you prepared to give up or sacrifice in order to achieve it?

If you want to be assured of your very best chance of achieving a goal, you now know what you must do. Put simply:

Here’s to more sales, profits and cash from your business,

Damien Parker
Business Improvement Specialist
www.salesprofitscash.com
Follow my Tweets: @salesprofitcash

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