A nice story in the paper today about great rugby All black captain, Richie McCaw, was selected for under 19 trials and how his father in Christmas 1998, asked him if he wanted to become a full All black when he was older.
Naturally he said yes like all New Zealanders.
Then his father asked him if he wanted to become a “great all black”? And if he did to write it down on a napkin. McCaw was modest and nodded but just wrote G. A. B. on the napkin. He then took the napkin to his own notice board and hung it there to remind him. It meant little or nothing to anyone else who passed the board, but meant everything to him.
His father set him a target of 2004, but reached this lofty goal in 2001, ironically against Ireland winning 40-29, and last Sunday those teams shared one of the best ever games last Sunday, winning right at the death 24-22, and their win was largely down to the captaincy and calming influence under extreme pressure of McCaw, who has pretty much seen everything in his long career.
McCaw credits that napkin story with keeping his focus when it could have wavered. It was a big lesson in setting a goal and sticking to it, and actually WRITING THOSE GOALS DOWN.
Goals have been proven in studies at Harvard University to be 80% more achievable IF THEY ARE WRITTEN DOWN.
They found that they had students who would talk about their future goals by just talking about them, would in reality have only a 20% chance of being successful in those goals.
The ones in the studies who actually wrote the goals down, and in detail, were found to have an incredible 80% likelihood of achieving those goals when they left college.
When I ask everyone what they want to achieve from their programme, lots of people say “I want to lose weight”, “I want to get fitter” etc, but if you actually write your goals down in detail and what they mean to you, its only then they become much more real, attainable and then you can actually develop a step by step process to achieve them.
If you take the first step right now and write down what you really want, then you will then be able to develop a detailed plan with a TIME LIMIT and schedule it into your lifestyle. The time limit part is vital and means you actually get it done full stop!
More on this tomorrow with examples of successes.
