The Power Of Goals

This study was done in Yale University in 1952. In that year, the graduating batch of students was asked if they had clear goals about what they wanted to achieve after they graduated. Surprisingly... out of the entire cohort, only three percent of the students had their goals written down. They were very clear about the kind of job they were going for; the amount of money they wanted to earn and achievements they wanted to accomplish. They had truly designed the next 15 to 20 years of their life. However; 97% of the students had no goals at all. They did not know what they wanted. They left everything up to chance and had the attitude of 'whatever will be, will be.'

Twenty years later, in 1972, a follow-up study was done on the surviving members of this group of students. What they found was astounding. The combined income of the three percent of the students who had set their goals were three times greather than the combined income of the 97% of the students who had not set any goals!

What accounted for this huge difference in success? It certainly was not their level of intelligence or ability. After all, they all come from the same Ivy League college. The difference was in the power of goals.