The Power of Writing it Down

We all know the importance of having goals in life. It motivates us, it gives us direction and fuels our efforts. It gives us milestones when the path is dark and bumpy. I've talked a lot about goals in the past couple of months - the new year is a great (if false) marker and measure for looking forward and backward at the same time.

You know that annoying question that is sometimes asked at job interviews - where do you see yourself in five years? Well - where DO you see yourself in five years? In your professional and your personal life? It's actually a pretty helpful question to answer.

So here's some really fun, uplifting homework for Wavers today: Write a free-flowing paragraph or two about where you see yourself in five years. Write it only in the positive - as if you HAVE achieved your goals - personal and professional. Write it with feeling - how great it feels to have achieved what you have achieved. How hopeful you are about even more achievement and success. Where are you living? What kind of house? What is your relationship status? How's your health? What have you written? Has it been sold or published? What's your peer group like? How's your family? Don't think - just write. This will become your personal mission statement. Keep it somewhere safe and reread it from time to time.

Now: there's one caveat. You have to believe that your goals are achievable. So if you write down: I have sold nine scripts, won three Academy Awards and live in the Taj Mahal where dancing girls wearing nothing but coconuts entertain me - you're defeating the purpose of this exercise. Unless you really, truly, madly, deeply believe that is in fact in your future. In which case, I have a great psychiatrist I can turn you on to. You can make anything happen if you honestly believe, down deep, that it is possible. So write down goals that you KNOW you COULD possibly achieve and then watch them begin to show up for you. Oh and you have to do the work. There's that.

Just the act of articulating and writing down your goals is a powerful way to set them into motion. Go ahead - give it a try. I did it the other day and I feel like one meeellion dollars!

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