Write It Down - The Simple Trick to Achieving Goals in 2025 (and at any other time)
Happy new year to all of you! To be honest, I’ve never been enthusiastic about classic New Year’s resolutions. In my experience, they tend to be largely ineffective. In January, yoga classes are often overcrowded with people driven by New Year’s resolutions. However, it is only a matter of weeks until the number of participants falls back to a normal level.
If you’re serious about achieving your goals, there’s one simple but powerful rule: Write them down. Start by jotting down your goals, then track and review your progress regularly. This small habit can make a big difference.
The Science Behind Writing Down Goals
Writing down your goals might sound simple, but it’s highly effective. In fact, science supports this approach, showing that it significantly boosts the likelihood of success. Here’s why: Research consistently links written goals to higher success rates. This can be explained by two key factors:
- External storage: The information about your goals is stored in a dedicated location and can be accessed and reviewed at any time. Revisiting your notes helps you stay focused and committed.
- Encoding: This is the brain’s process for deciding whether information gets stored in long-term memory. Encoding is improved by writing, and therefore, you are more likely to remember what you have written down.
This is especially exciting for me because sharing this information with you aligns perfectly with one of my own goals for 2025: publishing a blog post every month. It’s a win-win—I get to help others while working toward my personal milestones.
The best part? You can start right now. You don’t have to go down the fancy road. Simply open your notes app or grab a journal, and jot down a few goals you’d like to achieve this quarter.
A Smarter Way to Set Goals
I have also some thoughts on the character of the goal itself and want to make it clear by using a chess analogy. Let’s say someone has the goal to reach an ELO score of 1.600. This isn’t an ideal goal because it’s abstract and depends on multiple factors, making it hard to track. Sure, the ELO score itself can be easily measured because it is just a number, but it won’t improve on its own.
So instead you should set goals like this:
- Play 1 hour of chess every evening
- Read 1 theory book every month
- Solve 50 puzzles every week
By breaking the ELO goal into smaller, actionable, and easily measurable steps, you create a clearer pathway to improvement.
Another example: If you want to improve your fitness, avoid vague targets like “getting fit”. Instead you can break it into specific actions like jogging three times a week or doing 15 push-ups daily.
What goals have been on your mind? Take just ten minutes today to write down your goals and outline a simple plan to achieve them. Writing your goals and breaking them into actionable steps is the first step toward success.
