Double Your Chances of Achieving Your Goals in 3 Simple Steps

#3 — Report your progress to a friend

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

In 2015 Dr. Gail Matthews, at the Dominican University in California, conducted a study on 267 participants to understand what influences goal achievement.

He assigned the participants to five groups.

• The first group was asked to think of a goal they wanted to accomplish and give it a rate based on a few factors (difficulty, commitment, importance, etc.)
• The second group was asked to think about the above and write everything down on paper
• The third group was asked to write down their goals and rates + write down an action plan
• The fourth group was asked to write down all of the above + share their commitment with a friend
• The fifth group was asked to write down all of the above, share their commitment + send periodical updates about their progress to a friend

The study found that more than 70% of the participants who wrote their goal, planned it, and sent updates to a friend reported successful goal achievement by the end of the study (that lasted four weeks), as opposed to only 35% of those who kept their goals to themselves, without writing them down.

Based on the empirical evidence provided by this research, here are the steps to follow if you want to maximize your chances of achieving your goals.

#1 — Write down your goal

Obviously enough, writing something down increases its chances of being remembered, it forces you to be clear on what you want to accomplish and motivates you to take steps toward it.

#2 — Commit to taking action

“A goal without a plan is just a wish”, said Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
When you break down your goal into actionable steps you are doing three important things:

1. You are freeing cognitive resources for other activities, making yourself more efficient in your day-to-day, and ultimately having more focus, time, and resources to dedicate to pursuing your goal.
   In other words, an action plan allows you to set your intention and then forget about it until it’s time to work on it.
2. You are reducing the risk of procrastination because you will wake up every day knowing exactly what to do to make progress in your pursuit.
3. You are saving yourself from the risk of being overwhelmed.
   No matter how big of an endeavor you are getting yourself into, it will look achievable when broken down into smaller bits.

#3 — Report your progress to a friend

Accountability is a key factor in goal achievement, as it turns out.
For some reason, we are more compelled to see through our plans if we commit to them with someone else.

On top of motivating you to keep up with your pursuit, having an accountability partner will also allow you to get feedback, insights, and advice from another perspective.