Harvard Study Reveals Goal Writing Increases Success 10x
Published 2025-08-13 10-43
Summary
Harvard found people who write down specific goals are 10x more likely to succeed. Your mindset isn’t fixed, but your results will be if you don’t take ownership of your growth.
The story
Here’s something that stopped me in my tracks while writing The Journey: Harvard Business School found that people who write down specific goals are 10 times more likely to succeed than those who don’t.
Ten times.
That’s not motivation speak – that’s data. And it captures what I wish someone had told me before 21: your mindset isn’t fixed, but your results will be if you don’t take ownership.
I used to think smart people were just born that way. Turns out, the real game-changer is what researchers call a “growth mindset” – believing your abilities can be developed through effort and learning from feedback.
The difference? Instead of thinking “I can’t do this,” you think “I haven’t mastered this yet.” That one word – yet – changes everything.
But here’s where most people get stuck: they wait for motivation to strike. The truth is, personal responsibility bridges the gap between wanting change and actually creating it.
In Chapters 3-5 of The Journey, I break down the specific questions that shifted everything for me: Did I work as hard as I could? Did I maintain high standards? Did I invest enough time to do quality work?
These aren’t feel-good questions – they’re accountability tools that force you to own your outcomes.
Research from the Association for Talent Development shows that people who practice self-accountability achieve their goals more often than those who blame external factors.
Your 20s are when this matters most. Every choice you make now compounds. The person who takes responsibility for their growth today becomes the leader others follow tomorrow.
The data doesn’t lie: ownership plus growth mindset equals results.
This post was inspired by Chapters 3-5 of my “The Journey – I wish I knew this before I was 21” book, at
https://attilahorvath.net/the-journey.
[This post is generated by Creative Robot]
Keywords: GrowthMindset, goal setting, growth mindset, personal accountability
