A new semester is a blank slate. Your GPA may not always agree with that statement, but bear with me. Despite the challenges or failures some students may have faced last year, everyone arrives on campus with some sort of hope or ambition for the school year ahead. Unfortunately, academic ambition is good at disappearing a few weeks into the semester. Let’s be honest, some days you are glad you are even still literate. Those are bad days, but do not worry; I have a plan to return to the blank-slate ambition.
In 1979, Mark McCormack conducted a study on students in the Harvard MBA program. McCormack asked the business students, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” Eighty-four percent of the students admitted to having no specific goals at all; 13 percent had goals but did not have them in writing; and only 3 percent of students had written goals and plans.
Ten years later, the MBA graduates were interviewed again. The 13 percent who had goals but did not put them in writing were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no specific goals.
The students who had precise, written goals were earning, on average, 10 times more than the other 97 percent combined.
Of course, money does not necessarily equate with happiness, but the results of McCormack’s study are significant. We are much more likely to accomplish our goals if we take the time to sit down, figure out what we want and put it on paper.
Many psychologists and neurologists researched the subject thoroughly and found that setting a goal tricks our brains into thinking we have already accomplished that very goal. The outcome we are hoping for becomes a part of our psyche, which means we subconsciously start working to fulfill that image in our minds.
In addition, neurologists found that the brain has trouble distinguishing between things we desire and things we already possess. So, failure does not just mean we did not accomplish our goal. For the brain, it means we lost an important element of who we are.
The stress of trying to maintain our goal and succeed is good to drive us toward accomplishment, but it also lays out two general rules for goal setting. First, do not set unreasonable goals. You will stress yourself out way too much, and your brain will see the failure as a traumatic loss. In a similar way, limit your list. Do not write down 20 huge goals and expect yourself to accomplish them all in four months. Take the time to really think of what is truly important to you and set a few attainable, flexible goals for yourself.
Do not let me stop you from dreaming big, though. Set a goal for the semester, then a goal for the year, then a goal for 10 years from now and maybe even a lifetime goal. This will allow you to set your sights high by using steppingstones that act as guides to your ultimate goal.
Whatever time span the goal is for, you will feel more compelled to stick with it if you put it in writing. It’s like signing a contract. Put your written goal somewhere that you will see it every day, and each time you see it, it will serve as a reminder of the commitment you have made.
Moral of the story: Don’t let the ridiculously humid Arkansas weather suck the ambition out of you. If you know what you want, write it down and go get it.
