Write down your goals

The Power of Writing Down Your Goals and Dreams 09/14/2016 05:38 pm ET Updated Dec 06, 2017

Do you write down your goals and dreams on a regular basis? Or do you simply think about them, without actually recording them anywhere?

As it turns out, your answer to this question has a HUGE impact on your odds of transforming whatever it is you desire to be, do, have or give into your reality.

Why is the power of writing down goals so important?

Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, recently studied the art and science of goal setting.

She gathered two hundred and sixty-seven people together — men and women from all over the world, and from all walks of life, including entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare professionals, artists, lawyers and bankers.

She divided the participants into groups, according to who wrote down their goals and dreams, and who didn’t...

And she discovered that those who wrote down their goals and dreams on a regular basis achieved those desires at a significantly higher level than those who did not.

In fact, she found that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a regular basis.

The likelihood that you’ll transform your desires into reality goes up even further if you share your written goals with a friend who believes in your ability to succeed (what I call a “partner in believing”).

Why does writing down your goals and dreams have such a profound impact?

The explanation has to do with the way our brains work.

As you may know, your brain has a left and a right hemisphere.

The wide, flat bundle of neural fibers that connects the two hemispheres is called the corpus callosum. This is the conduit through which the electrical signals between the right brain, which is imaginative, and the left brain, which is literal, make contact.

These electrical signals then move into the fluid that surrounds the brain and travels up and down the spinal column.