Are you interested in setting and achieving short, medium, and long-term goals for you and/or your business? Would you like to do as much as possible in life - enjoy time with family and friends, accomplish something noteworthy, give of yourself? If you answer yes to any of these questions - and you've somehow found this page on the Internet - you're probably interested in goal setting.

I have to confess that I had never really heard of formal goal setting until later in life - well after high school, college, and graduate school. I've since heard statistics about success rates, measured both in net worth and levels of personal satisfaction, for people who have written goals vs. those who don't, and the evidence is staggering. Written goals (including mind mapped goals), and a plan to achieve them, are primary ingredients in success. You can succeed without either, but it's a lot harder (kind of like trying to hit a target with a blindfold).

One story I've heard repeatedly to describe the power of goals and goal-setting is a description of flights from New York to London. More than 90% of the time the planes are off course, but the combination of a written plan from point A to point B (that is, a goal), and subtle corrections along the way, mean the planes land in London 100% of the time. That's the power of goal-setting.