Hey everyone, welcome back to the daily call. This is Kirk here again at Option Alpha and today, I want to share with you guys this hidden statistic about goal-setting that you’ve probably never heard of before. In fact, I didn’t even hear about it until I knew it was out there, but I didn’t hear what the research was on it or didn’t see actual concrete numbers on this until just recently and I was reading another book because I just read lots and lots of books and saw this and I was like, “Man, I got to share this with everyone because it’s so, so powerful.” I know we’re 20 or so days into January in 2018 here and so, you’ve probably hopefully already set some goals, but it might be better to do just this one thing as you get started this year and help out. I’ve realized even just listening to this and reading this statistic about goal-setting that I’m basically already doing this in a way and I’ll talk about that here in a second which I think now, looking back on it has really helped me out. It’s really allowed me to excel to a different level and hopefully continue to excel in both my trading and wealth and knowledge and all of this stuff which has been really good.
Here's the deal. You may have seen and there’s a lot of research on this, but there’s one done by Professor Doctor Gail Matthews. He researched individuals that did goal-setting for many, many years and what he found is that in part of his research… This is what you hear oftentimes, is this first part of it, but there’s a second hidden part to his research that’s not often talked about. The first part of his research, he found that people with written goals were 39.5% more likely to succeed than people who didn't have written goals which is crazy in and of itself because if you think about it, just the act of writing down your goal, like the 10 minutes that it takes to write down your goal increases your odds of actually hitting that goal by 39.5%. You want a huge improvement in your life? Frankly, just write down a goal and look at it and that’s in and of itself very, very powerful. But look. 39.5% more likely is still not a huge number. I mean, it’s more likely than doing nothing, it's better than doing nothing, but it’s not a lot of action, it’s not any accountability.
What he found though and what's more to the story that people don’t often see is that when you dig through the research, you found that when he actually tracked people who sent their goals or reported on their goals to somebody else, a friend, a family member, a coworker, an accountability partner, a coach, when they sent that person weekly or monthly or progress reports, quarterly progress reports on how they were doing and what steps they were taking to achieve their goal, they were 76.7% more likely to achieve them than somebody who's not doing that, so a huge… If you think about the big things that you need to do, the big levers that you need to push or pull to make changes, in this case with goal-setting, it’s not about just writing it down. Writing it down gets you the first step, meaning you want to take another giant leap forward in progress. Have somebody that is your accountability partner in your goals and send them progress reports. Initially, maybe just quarterly or even weekly or monthly to let them know where you are in your goal-setting journey, in your journey towards I guess achieving the goals that you set out initially during the year.
All this does is it gives us this accountability, this mentorship that we need, that self-imposed that basically fuels enough fire for us to actually go out and do something about it. It’s this ongoing accountability help that lets us keep going and have the consistency that we need to achieve our goals. And so, what I said initially is I realized that I’ve already been doing this and this is part of the reason why I still run Option Alpha and I feel like I need to be doing this not only for you guys, but personally for me. It helps me out an insane amount because now, I've got 78,000 accountability partners. When I send out my trades or post performance or do any of this stuff, post my goals about what I'm doing, I have often been known to say, “Look. We’re going to start back testing this. We never had plans to do it, but I know we're going to do it. We’re going to figure out how to do it. We’re going to set the wheels in motion to buy the data and develop the team and run the test and put it together.” That sometimes is never more than just putting it out there and saying, “Look. This is what we’re going to do.” And then I start figuring out how to piece it together. And so, I think that maybe you could do that too and if you want, you can share it with me. I’m not going to follow up with you and be your accountability partner and check in on you and call you every week. But if you want to share them with me and I can be the person that you share it too and who have some accountability, I think that’s great.
I think people in our community… I know pro and elite members in our forum, they oftentimes will share their goals with one another and say, “My goal is to complete five tracks by the end of the week or to start making 10 trades or to go through my first earnings season with 10 trades or whatever the case is.” But it’s so, so fascinating that just the act of sending it to somebody else or having some sort of accountability partner and coach can make such a huge difference. I really believe that most goals are inevitable that you should set goals that you can inevitably reach. It’s probably unrealistic to say, “I want to fly to the moon.” unless you’re an astronaut and you’re in that space. But set goals that you can realistically reach and then realize that they’re inevitable to reach them as long as you have the right steps and the right processes in place, that you build the right habits, that you have the right consistency. It seems like at least just sending those goals to somebody else or having them check in on you is a huge step forward in being able to achieve them. Maybe today, the takeaway is – If you haven't already, get you goals in place, get your action steps in place for this year and then send them to somebody. Have somebody be accountable to you this year and be accountable to them. Maybe you guys can trade-off and you guys can tag team this and you're their partner, they’re your partner, whatever works best for you guys.
I want to share this today because I thought it was really helpful, especially as we’re at the beginning part of 2018 and just going forward in the future. As always, hopefully you guys enjoy these. If you have any questions, comments, any other things you guys want to talk about or topics around this, let us know. We’d be happy to do more shows on this because I love this whole concept of goal-setting and progress and tracking and performance. All very cool stuff, stuff I geek out on for sure. Until next time, happy trading!
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