Write down your goals. Keep them visible. Those two sentences have been repeated countless times in literature on goal setting. My own variation on that theme came when I wrote my Christmas letter the preceding January. I re-read it every month, and was amazed as how what was written in January came to pass by December. I wrote about that experience in a post called Christmas Letters from the Future.

My suggestion on how to make that letter re-surface each month is:

• If your to-do list is digital, make reading your letter a repeating task, and put the body of the letter in the note section of the task.
• If your to-do list is paper, put the letter in your tickler file. When it re-surfaces, read it and re-file it for a month down the road.

Goal Setting with FutureMe

FutureMe.org is a website I saw which accomplishes much the same purpose. You write your letter, provide the date on which you would like to see it again, and enter your e-mail address. On the appointed date, the letter arrives in your e-mail. From there, you can copy and paste the letter back into the website and select a new date.

Whatever your method, the main idea is to envision your preferred future, review that vision periodically, and “adjust the sails.” Little-by-little, your performance begins to resemble your vision.

How do YOU keep your goals on tracks? Leave me a comment below.