Write your goals daily for starting and stoking the fire

A blank page or tablet to write your goals. Today is a fresh start.

There is a single passenger reading light on a British Airways flight to London. It's near the back of the plane. Most of the cabin is dim and quiet. The overnight flight has few people still awake. When you listen, there are sounds though. Someone is scribbling and someone is snoring. What is someone scribbling?

The darkened British Airways cabin. It can still possible to write your goals.

That was me on a flight a few days ago. My back was hurting, and the writing on the passenger tray was cramped. Most people were asleep. But, the habit of daily writing and visualizing my goals kicks in. I have to write! I want to ensure I stick to writing my goals down daily. It’s a challenge for me, but I write my goals. Rarely is it missed. Writing the goals down daily is a way of continually re-focusing on what's important, and then taking action on the goals. Keep in mind, "The things upon which your life depends on the most, are the actions which you take every day." (Cardone, 2011).

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This is a straightforward habit. Brian Tracy highlights in ‘Achieve Any Goal: 12 Steps to Realizing Your Dreams’, the daily aspect of this habit. “I personally recommend that you write and rewrite your goals each day, day after day, week after week, and month after month" (Tracy, 2021). What a good start to the day.

As Grant Cardone highlights "I write my goals down every day" (Cardone, 2011). Do it in the present tense, with feeling, not as if you will achieve it, but as if you have achieved it. Ideally in the morning. Write it as if you have completed it and are living the impacts of goal completion. As Eckhart Tolle put it, "The key is not that you will receive it, because that puts it into the future". (Tolle, 2022).

Use the present tense, with positive meaning, and make it definite. For example, “I have and keep 3-6 months of living expenses. It grows in safety”. Try this. Feel the difference in how you feel if you say, “I will save 10% of all future incomes” and “I save 10% of all incomes that come to me”. Which feels more exciting and real? "I word them as though I have already achieved them, even when I have yet to achieve them" (Cardone, 2011).

As highlighted in the 'Richest Man in Babylon', “Thy desires must be strong and definite” and later, ”Desires must be simple and definite” (Clayson, 1926). Without this clarity and definiteness, your goals are going to be difficult to start, progress on, and know when it is achieved. When you have a specific goal, then you can take massive action towards it. “For a man to desire 5 pieces of gold is a tangible desire, which he can press to fulfillment” (Clayson, 1926). 

Why set the goals? It is to know what you want, keep focusing on it, and take significant action to get there. You get what you focus on. Writing the goals daily gets you to take action on the most important things.

As Brian Tracy puts it, it is a psycho-neuromotor activity (Tracy, 2021). You activate the physical through writing, engage the emotions through feelings and visualize the goal achievement, and the thinking, all to help anchor the goal. You can change the physiology (body), emotions, or psychology (thinking), and impact all the others.  

This is a key habit to do daily. This could be a new habit. Grant Cardone mentions, "Most people, no offense, are so apathetic about their goals, that they only write them down (goals) once a year when the media says 'Oh it's resolution day'" (Cardone, 2011). Research finds that approximately 3% of people write down their goals (Tracy, 2001 and Damon, 2022). Doing this daily keeps the goals in mind. As Grant Cardone puts it, "Nothing worth doing is done once or twice a year" (Cardone, 2011).

Normally this habit takes me 12 - 15 minutes nowadays. At the start, it took half an hour or more. I rewrote them again and again to shorten them, and ensure the goals were clear, with feeling, and present.  Not just a rote script. You’re living and experiencing the result or goal because you have become that person. Feel into the expression of it. Feel that you have it already. Neville Goddard. Fit it in early in the day for simplicity and then you’re taking charge of the day. You’re driving the mindset rather than reacting

For months I have been saying to myself and writing “I enjoy my new windows and sliding door”, one of my 2024 goals. The new installation didn’t materialize out of thin air. I had been working towards it. Taking action steps like getting the quotes for different providers, securing the funds to pay for it in full, clearing the place so that the installation could progress, and being ready when the contractors arrive. It finally happened last week. They do look great, and now I am enjoying my new windows and sliding door.

Woman looking out of windows.

Not that the goals can’t change. You can cross off ones when you have realized it. That is such a great feeling. But not because you ticked off the goal, but because you became the person who could make it happen. Keep adding to or refining the language. 8-10 goals to write down daily is plenty. I prefer to write on paper to deeply create the neural link. As I’m writing, I’m feeling and visualizing how I will experience and enjoy the positive impacts of the goal completion. 

Share the goals you’re working on. We would love to see them. Or put some goals in the comments and we can help you word-smith the language to be clear, positive, in the present tense, and written with feeling. Write the goals down daily to start and stoke the fires, after that take more actions towards your goals.

To your success.