Make your goals big and bold and then achieve them
In this twenty-three-minute video from June 2020, therapist Marisa Peer talks about using the law of attraction to achieve your goals. According to the description, your dreams will never become reality until you set goals that take you there, and she shares a goal-setting exercise. I could not listen to the audio, so I do not know the steps of her exercise. Here is what research says about setting big, bold goals.
Goals that work
In the 1990s, psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham summarized decades of studies in goal-setting theory. Their main finding is that specific and difficult goals lead to better performance than vague ones such as "do my best," as long as the person has the ability and receives feedback. Big goals work because they focus attention and effort.
Big, but with a map
- BHAG. In their 1994 book Built to Last, James Collins and Jerry Porras coined "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" for bold, long-term business goals.
- Writing helps. In a 2015 study by psychologist Gail Matthews, people who wrote down their goals, shared them with a friend and sent weekly progress reports achieved more than people who only thought about them.
- Mental contrasting. Gabriele Oettingen found that picturing the wish and then the obstacles gives better results than picturing success alone. Her method is known as WOOP: wish, outcome, obstacle, plan.
A myth to avoid
You may hear that a Yale class of 1953 or a Harvard class of 1979 showed that the three percent who wrote goals earned ten times more than the rest. Researchers have looked for that study and found no record that it ever took place.
A simple exercise
- Write one goal that excites and scares you a little.
- Make it specific: what, how much, by when.
- List three obstacles you expect and one response to each.
- Break the goal into a first step you can take this week.
- Tell one person who will ask you about it.
- Review it every Sunday.
The universe and effort
The idea that "the universe conspires with you" is a poetic way to say that when you commit, you notice and seize chances you used to miss. That is a real effect of attention. It works best when paired with steady work.
Material audiovisual de referencia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6xxMAgpLmM
Related Esoteric Inquiries:
- How to Win Anybody's Heart You Admire & Influence Them | Ralph Smart
- The Transylvanian Prince? Unraveling the Origins of Europe's Greatest Mystery
Lux Esoterica.
2026.
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