You’ve probably heard about the Harvard Business School study regarding the value of having clearly defined goals and a written plan designed to achieve them. 3% of the study’s respondents had a “written, specific plan” for what they wanted to achieve. 10% of them had a “general set of goals” with no definite plan. 60% of those surveyed had only “survival goals” that would allow them to live day to day. The final 27% had “no goals”. When the study was completed 20 years later, people in the 3% group with definite written goals had out produced the 10% group by over ten times. In fact, this 3% group had amassed greater wealth in those 20 years than the entire other 97% of those surveyed!
I was talking to an executive sitting next to me on a flight from Chicago two weeks ago. As we discussed our business prospects for next year, he sounded absolutely depressed. Given what’s going on in the US economy right now, I can understand why you might be a bit worried. The stock market is down, financing is difficult to locate at present and the big “R word,” recession, is in the air.