When it comes to goal achievement you’ve likely heard the study of the Ivy League school that had wildly different success rates between students who wrote down their goals and those that didn’t. The facts show that this study never really happened, it is urban legend.
Regardless of the false statistics in the famous urban legend study, I have read many other fact-based studies that confirm what I have also found in my life and my clients’ experience. The practice of writing down your goals is a definite step in the right direction for achievement.
In 2015, Psychology professor Dr. Gail Matthews felt it was important to personal and professional coaching be based on scientific results and reported her findings on a study involving various common goal-setting strategies[1].
Studying five control groups of a total of 267 people Matthews found vastly different results between those who simply thought about their goals with a 43% rate of part or complete achievement compared to a remarkable 76% of those who wrote out their goals and provided status updates.
“My study provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of three coaching tools: accountability, commitment, and writing down one’s goals,” Matthews said.
The fact is that there are almost as many reasons for people failing to reach their goals or New Year’s resolutions, as there are reasons for success. People have different styles, motivators and different processes work for different people.
