Here’s a piece of advice you may know: Write down your top goals and re-read them every day. Simply implementing this daily review can make a significant difference in whether you achieve the goals.

If this sounds like some kind of magical thinking, it’s not. Re-reading your goals helps you achieve them through an entirely understandable process:

1. When you write out the goal on paper and re-read it every day, you give yourself a chance to test it and refine it. All goal statements are not created equal. If you formulate your goal in a vague or unrealistic way, you can’t achieve it. Just the act of writing the goal down helps you notice and correct these problems. But even if you don’t catch a problem immediately, every time you re-read the goal, you have a chance to spot an issue and refine the goal accordingly.

2. Every time you re-read your goal, you reinforce your desire for it. That motivates you to take action. You can see how this works when you plan a vacation. Every time you think about what you’d like to do, you get a little more excited about the vacation, and eager to plan the details to make that happen.

3. When you re-read your goal every day, you keep the idea activated. It is easily triggered by outside circumstances, so you think of it at helpful times. For example, suppose your goal is to carve out time for exercise. If an appointment is canceled, you would like to realize “I could use this time for exercise.” If you reviewed your goal this morning, you are quite likely to make the connection. On the other hand, if you last thought about exercise a week ago, it’s off your radar, and probably won’t occur to you.

4. When you re-read your goal every day, you automatically notice your progress (or lack thereof). Tracking progress is crucial to achieving goals, because it gives you the information you need to correct your course as you go. They say Apollo 11 was off course more than 90% of the trip to the moon — but they still got there, because they constantly corrected the course. So, just by re-reading the goal every day, you support making the changes you need to actually achieve it.

As you see, there are good reasons why writing down your top goals and re-reading them every day helps you to achieve them.

But it’s not magic. If you aren’t committed to the goal, then clarifying it, reminding yourself about it, and noticing your progress won’t help a bit. Ultimately, you will only achieve your goal if you choose to act toward it. Writing down the goal and
reviewing it every day simply helps you see the opportunities to act.