We all know that we are more likely to succeed if we set goals, right? But this week I heard that if you set a goal and write it down, you are 42% more likely to hit your target. What’s more, If you write it down and tell someone, you are 70% more likely to reach your goal.

Here are some of my goals, but I’d like to help you achieve yours too. Join me, write your goals down and share them in the comments, let’s help each other succeed.

What? Loose 8lb by March 14th 
How? By stopping eating sliced butter on cake. Come to think of it, stop eating cake.

What? Run 50K on my 50th birthday, May 8th
How? By booking a 50K event on that day, and by sticking to the running schedule as closely as possible

What? Reduce my debt to XXX (that’s between me and the hole in the wall)
How? By taking a ‘deep dive’ into my finances once a month, and by recording my total debt every Monday. That’s being frighteningly honest, but I’m banking on a 70% chance of success now I’ve written it down and told you.

What? Improve my written communication.
How? Get back to blogging as a way of telling the RunningSpace story week by week rather than writing a newsletter once in a blue moon. Write one blog post per week, (however good or bad it is), and read and learn from successful bloggers.

What? Improve my leadership
How? By becoming a better planner

Planning makes me anxious. I don’t plan holidays because I don’t believe they will happen, I buy advent calendars on 2nd December, I enjoy guessing what I’m going to do next. The upside is the fun of spontaneity, but the downsides include confusion, sticking to the familiar, terrible leadership, and lack of direction. Not to mention that Christmas is a day late in our house.

In all honestly it worries me that if I plan, and the plan doesn’t work out, then I will have failed.

But for the sake of RunningSpace and all the people supporting it, planning is a skill I need to master. I’m fortunate to have very good people around me. Beware, I will be asking you for help.

One last thing. Get obsessed with the process. Don’t fret or focus on the goal. There are an infinite number of factors we can’t control which influence success or failure. I could break my leg and not be able to run 50K, or I could receive an unexpected gift which cleared by overdraft. I can’t do much to influence either.

But I can get focussed on the process, knowing that every single step is forward progress. The goal will take care of itself. And guess what, my chances of success just went up to 70%.

Come and run with us, it might just change your life.