Write This Down

I always say that the shortest pencil is better than the longest memory. I read a statistic that says if we don’t write down a thought, within 37 seconds we lose it to the doorbell, the text message, the squirrel, the dryer buzzer, the interruption… you get it.

In an article titled “Brain Science: The Forgetting Curve—the Dirty Secret of Corporate Training,” Art Cohn points to research that shows that within one hour—60 little minutes—people forget an average of 50 percent of the information they just received. Within 24 hours, they forget an average of 70 percent of new information. Within a week, usually, 90 percent of new information is gone forever. Don’t waste your time! It’s your most precious commodity.

So, for real, never read an exercise and say, “I’ll do that later.” No, you won’t. Clarity of vision brings clarity of life. So let’s get clear. When you’re forming your goals, get them on paper—and do it today!

Well, what’s so significant about today? This is the day that you’re making a commitment to write down your goals and to head toward your future. A study done by psychology professor, Dr. Gail Matthews, found that just writing down your goals gives you a 42% higher chance of reaching your goal.

It only takes writing them down to be almost halfway there! So grab that paper and pen. Don’t just get your computer out. Forage for writing supplies, if you have to! The process of writing is actually a mental commitment to making it happen.

We aren’t just going to write our goals—we’re going to get them. And don’t worry, I’m going to help you know exactly what to write and how to write them so you’ll get there. You know you’re going to get there, right? You’re not like you used to be.

The truths I’m sharing aren’t hard or even time-consuming. They’re little tweaks that lead to giant peaks. Peaks that will take you to the top. And you’re headed there right now. Did you know that 97% of Americans don’t write down any goals? You can get ahead of 97% of the people in the world by committing your goals to paper. By that one simple act, you enter the top 3% of people! Congratulations, you’re about to enter an upper echelon already.

Harvard Business School did a study on some of their students—all the way through school and for years into their careers. At the end of the study, they recorded some pretty phenomenal separators. The top three alumni in the study in terms of power, influence and highest financial gain all had one thing in common: they had written goals. The rest of the Harvard graduates hadn’t kept up with their success—none of them had bothered to write goals in the first place! Even their Ivy League education didn’t give them the same edge that taking the time and focus to write their goals did.

Don’t Mess with Me

When you know where you’re going, people tend to get out of your way, even if they’re not supposed to do so. If we’re convinced we’re on the right path, and that we have a right to be there, people are going to get out of our way. People who are supposed to stop us won’t. If we feel “less than,” or we’re wandering aimlessly, they’ll never let us through. But we aren’t wandering—we’re writing our goals and heading straight for them.

Write this down: Don’t mess with me. I’m going somewhere good.

You see, we can’t see the future the way we’re supposed to see it in the natural. We’ve got to see with eyes of faith. We’ve got to develop our imaginations to see bigger things than we can ask, think, or imagine. We’ve got to think with a God-sized imagination. After all, if we can do it by ourselves, our dreams are not big enough!

Why Do I Feel This Way?

You’ll notice, as you start writing down your goals, that you’re going to feel a little bit different. That’s because writing goals is scientifically proven to elevate your heart rate. There’s motivation so primal that it’s biological. Our blood pressure increases in a good way. Why? Because the spirit on the inside of you starts getting excited. The life that resides inside of you begins to spill out.

J.C. Penney, who was a good Christian man, said, “If you give me a stock clerk with a goal, I’ll show you a man that’s going to make history. But if you give me a man that has no goal, well, I’ll show you a stock clerk.” I love that quote because it proves that it doesn’t matter where you start. It just matters that you start. It doesn’t matter what happened to you. It doesn’t matter what happened because of you. It does not matter where you start. You can’t change your destination in a day, but you can change your direction. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to change our direction today.

Ready, Set, Prime Your Pump

I’m about to give you instructions that will take three minutes to execute, and that will help frame the best part of your life. Before I do, we need to help you prime your dream pump—to tap into your imagination like a little kid with a root beer keg in the backyard on their birthday.

I mean, I love watching little kids. They only think in the realm of can and do. Growing up to be Superman isn’t out of the realm of possibilities to them.

When I was a kid, we would get stuck at my great grandma’s house for holidays. With nothing else to do, I recruited my cousins and decided we would do The Sound of Music. I knew it was going to be awesome. We invited the parents downstairs and made them endure (I mean enjoy) all of the fruits of our 60- to 90-minute practice. We did this whole production number. In my head, it was fantastic—because my imagination was still intact.

You have to see it to be it. Today, if you put me in that same basement and told me to produce The Sound of Music, I would think it was cruel and unusual punishment. I’d just walk away. But it didn’t stop me back then.

We’re supposed to have childlike faith. We’re supposed to see beyond the circumstances. That’s the kind of thing God asks us to do. If you use your imagination—if you can see it, if you can put it out there, if you can put a vision to it—I can make it happen.

But we’ll never leave where we are until we can see where we want to go. And that’s what a goal is.

A Goal Is Like a Destination

If I called you and asked you to go on a road trip with me—if I told you that I’d be at your house in 15 minutes to pick you up—you would want to know where we’re going, right? You would need to know how to pack. Are we going snow skiing? To the beach? To a conference?

What if we hit the road and didn’t decide for an entire hour where we were going? What if we finally decided we wanted to lay on the beach but had already spent an hour driving 80 mph toward Kansas? We’d have wasted our time and energy, and we have all the wrong stuff packed for the trip.

That’s what happens when we don’t have a goal when we don’t know where we’re going. We waste a lot of time going in the wrong direction and we’re not prepared for what’s coming up when we finally get there. We’ve got to know where we’re going. No small plans are made here.

Let’s go.

It Begins

If the enormity of our dreams doesn’t scare us just a little, then we may be walking by sight and not by faith. Our opportunity here is big… way bigger than we even think! It’s about to get fast and furious. Do you have your pen and paper? Is your imagination station active and your dream pump primed? Okay. Let’s write your goals.

Here are a few guidelines to help you reach your dreams:

Only Write 7-10 Goals

Why? In the past, I’ve had 10 spiritual goals, 10 financial goals, 10 personal goals and maybe 10 relational goals. For sure, 10 vacation goals. I’ve got 10 plans for my kids. I’ve got 10 plans for my dog, and I’ve got 10 plans for my plan. I’ve done stuff like that before. I ended up failing more than I achieved, and I walked away feeling defeated instead of accomplished.

Since then, I’ve read studies that made me realize that a lot of people end up feeling the same way! We divide our focus, miss the mark and end up losing momentum instead of gaining it. There’s an old adage that says, “If you chase too many rabbits, you won’t catch any of them.” Studies suggest that, if you write seven to ten goals, it allows you to narrow your focus so you can achieve what’s in your heart.

Write Your Goals Quickly

Set an alarm for three minutes. Studies show that you should take no more than three minutes when writing your goals. Any longer than that, and you start talking yourself out of them. We start reasoning with ourselves: “Well, I could never do that…” Statements start popping into our heads such as, “That’s really ambitious for someone like me,” or, “I’m not really sure I can pull that off…”

No, no, no. Three minutes. I want you to write your goals right now, while you’re still reflecting on the two pivotal questions, what would it take for this to be the most amazing year of my life? God, are you good with it?

What’s in your heart? Write it down. See how it feels. Be bold. No one is going to see it (for now) but you! What does it feel like to see it in black and white?

Is it challenging? A little scary? Do you feel peace in your heart, even though it’s a stretch? Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. I didn’t ask if you’re able to make this happen without God’s help. I asked if, when we pass your brain and listen to your spirit, there’s a peace down deep. The Bible says to be led forth with peace, so hold onto that one!

Or is your answer, “No, I feel kind of upset.” Okay. God, we’re going to pass on the upset and unrest in our spirit, and we’re going to go with the goals about which we have peace.

Write It in the Present Tense

Second Corinthians 5:7 says, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” We’re speaking faith words. We’re thinking faith thoughts. It leads the heart out of defeat and into victory every time. We don’t talk about it as if one day it could happen; we speak about it as if it’s already happened.

Write things like they’re complete. Write statements such as,

“I weigh my perfect weight (whatever the number is). “

“I live in a house that is paid off.”

“I’m accepted into (the school, the club, the job).”

“I have received this promotion. I have the title of...”

Go ahead and write it as if it’s in the present tense—and make sure you write it down, because you’re going to need it.

Who Do You Think You Are?

When the going gets tough, we need to be able to reference our goals and say them as if they’re already done. That helps our mind to settle it with finality. In Matthew 4, the devil came to Jesus with a specific purpose in mind: to tempt him. “Who do you think You are anyway, Jesus? Why do You think You’ve got this power?” If the devil was brash enough to poke Jesus, then yeah, the enemy’s going to challenge you on your goals.

His line will be, “Who do you think you are anyway? Why do you think you have any right to this?” We need to answer the same way Jesus did in Matthew 4:4. Jesus’ answer never changed, no matter how many times the enemy asked. He responded with the same three words every time. He said, “It is written.” Keep that goal in front of you, and you can tell the enemy, “This is my goal. It is written. I’ve talked with God about it, and He let me know that this is my direction. I know who I am. I know Whose I am. I’m a child of the Most High King, and I serve Jehovah Jireh, my Provider. He happens to be my Daddy. When you mess with the baby, all of heaven comes after you.”

You’ve got to know who you are and Whose you are. You’ve got to write the vision and make it plain (Habakkuk 2:2). Keep it in front of you. When the enemy comes to challenge it, you’ll know what you’re doing.

Be Specific

Remember, clarity of vision brings clarity of life. It worked for Oprah. She always knew that she would be a millionaire by 32. Not 35. Not 30. 32. Her ambition was also to be the richest black woman in America. The talk show host knew exactly where she was going because she said these specific things: the age and the position. Nineteen years later, she was exactly where she said she would be, right on schedule. There’s a difference between a resolution and a goal.

Resolutions include items like saving money, getting out of debt, getting closer to God. reading more, losing weight and spending more time with family.

These are nice table talk at a party… but not solid goals. They’re typically vague New Year’s resolutions, but they’re not attainable. That’s why we haven’t reached them, and we tend to give up so quickly. We set ourselves up for failure. It’s as loose as a guilty man’s alibi—terribly vague, as broad as the day is long. They are almost impossible to measure. So how do you know if you’ve won?

I know you like to win. So we’re framing your thinking for that. You’re going to write your 7-10 specific goals. You’re not going to just store them in your thoughts where they can get fuzzy or forgotten. You’re writing them down because it adds clarity to your dream.

For example, maybe you want to work with animals. But what does that mean? Does that mean being a veterinarian? Being a veterinary assistant? Being a zookeeper? Leading a safari? Working at a dog shelter? Opening a dog shelter? This is the time to clarify. Write quickly, within three minutes.

The things I’m telling you aren’t just ideas I invented out of thin air. It’s God’s idea. Habakkuk 2:2 says, “Then the Lord answered me and said: ‘Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.’” Write it down where you can see it, and be specific. I want you to say out loud right now, “I’m going to be specific.” You need to hear yourself say that.

Write your specific goals down.

In sales, they teach you to be crystal clear in what you offer to people. The more precise you are, the better people will respond. There was a study that quantified these results. If we say something as vague as, “Can you spare any change?” We can expect a 44% rate of affirmative responses.

When we clarify it a little more, by asking, “Can you spare a quarter?” The affirmative response rate jumps to 64%! That’s almost a 50% gain! When we get very specific, and say something like, “Can you spare 37 cents?” The study showed that 75% responded and followed through! Three-quarters of the people did what was asked of them!

This even works on us. The clearer we are with ourselves and our future goals, the more we will respond to them!

Your Goals List

It’s time! With pen in hand, tell Alexa to set a timer for three minutes. Write your specific goals in the present tense. Dream big, baby! This is about to be your best year yet!