Thank goodness, it is a new year!  What are your thoughts/goals for making 2021 a successful year personally and business/career wise?

Don’t let 2020 paralyze your thoughts and actions for 2021.  If anything 2020 should have prepared us to embrace change, exercise our flexibility and become more agile in our decision making.

The year is just starting.  So take some time (an hour would be nice) to sit back, close your eyes, take a few deep breathes and think about what you would like to accomplish.  Visualize it – complete with characters and scenery.  When you have a few thoughts or intentions – 1 to 3 is all you need – write them down. Don’t worry about setting a timeline to achieve yet.  Just identify.

Do you know why writing down your goals and reviewing them periodically is so important?

In 1979 Harvard University set out to survey goal setting among its students.  Information collected over a period of time, revealed:

3% of population have written goals
14% have goals, not written down
83% have not clearly defined goals

And, the 3% with written goals earned 10 times more than the others.

Why is writing it down so important?
We have a reticular activating system (RAS) in our brain stem.  It is a bundle of nerves that filters out unnecessary information so important information can get through.  Sort of like our own spam filter.  It is why when you finally purchase a white (or special color) car, all you see on the road are those colored cars.*

And it works!  I have experienced some amazing achievements using this process of defining my intentions (goals), visualizing and having them materialize.  This has worked both with personal and business intentions.  It also helps to share your intentions with others.

In the next post I will cover setting timelines.

* don’t overwhelm your RAS with more than 1-3 intentions.  The RAS has other responsibilities as well!