Introduction
Goal setting is universally encouraged, yet the actual mechanisms that convert intentions into achievements often remain underestimated. One of the most referenced empirical insights on this subject comes from Dr. Gail Matthews of Dominican University (2007), whose research concluded that individuals who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them than those who merely think about them. Moreover, those who create action commitments and share progress with another person show the greatest improvement.
The Coaching Engagement: Setting Goals with Intent
In early 2023, we worked together over a focused 4-month coaching engagement. During this period, Vijay articulated a series of 10 goals across professional, personal, and well‑being domains. Each goal was accompanied by a written explanation of why it mattered and a set of actions to bring it to life.
A Serendipitous Discovery in January 2026
Nearly three years later, in January 2026, an unexpected moment of curiosity led us back to those original goals. There had been no formal tracking or structured follow-ups after the engagement ended, yet revisiting the goals revealed meaningful progress, new directions, and valuable insights.
Reflection Themes
1. Goals with clear emotional meaning tended to show stronger momentum.
Across the entire goal set, the goals that were grounded in a deep sense of personal meaning, where the “why” was emotionally resonant rather than logically constructed, showed the most natural progress over time. This was true even without formal tracking or follow‑up. When the underlying motivation connected to identity, values, or a core life aspiration, momentum appeared to sustain itself. Such goals activated an internal drive rather than relying on external reminders.
2. Practical and measurable goals highlighted the need for systematic tracking.
Goals involving measurable progress, routines, or ongoing quantitative indicators proved harder to advance without structured tracking. The 2026 review showed that practical goals decay quickly without systems for measurement, feedback, and checkpoints. This reinforced that systems, not intentions, drive consistent execution.
3. Some goals were achieved indirectly through new opportunities.
Several goals were achieved in unexpected ways, not through the specific actions originally planned but through new, adjacent opportunities that emerged over time. These outcomes fulfilled the deeper intention behind the goal, even if the path looked different. This demonstrates that the spirit of a goal can be met even when circumstances evolve.
4. Some goals required redesign rather than more effort.
A subset of goals revealed conceptual, not behavioral, obstacles. These goals were too binary, ambiguous, or misaligned with changing life realities. In these cases, redesign, reframing, breaking into stages, or redefining success, was more effective than increased effort. Revisiting them years later highlighted how goal clarity matures with experience.
Vijay’s reflections on the journey
As we reflected together on the goal-setting process, especially when revisiting the goals after three years, Vijay shared several powerful insights about what the journey revealed to him. In his own words:
“Goal setting unfortunately is not introduced as a textbook syllabus, neither in school nor during our grad or postgrad years.”
This absence, he noted, means most people encounter goal setting for the first time in the workplace, where it often becomes transactional rather than transformational.
“To a great extent, when one faces these during employment, it gets too transactional.”
Through our coaching work and later reflection, Vijay realised that the foundational questions behind goals are rarely discussed:
“Goal setting seems like an outofsyllabus topic. The need is to begin understanding goal setting from the very basics, beyond measurability, am I setting goals that are worth setting? How would my emotions be when I achieve them, or don’t? How important is the goal to the other person involved, like a family member?”
This deeper examination changed how he viewed the purpose and value of goals. Measurement, he observed, becomes meaningful only after the right goals are set:
“Once set and you go through them, it’s the measurement that gives clues into how worthy the goal really is. And once accomplished or not, you get to feel the real value of the process.”
Perhaps the most profound learning came from re-evaluating assumptions about achievement and joy:
“I had thought the goals I accomplish 100% would give me the greatest joy. In contrast, what gave me maximum joy wasn’t the highest scoring goal, but the one where I managed to exceed another person’s expectations.”
He shared an example from his personal life, where the intent was to spend time with someone important to him. But the true fulfilment came not from meeting a numeric target, but from being present when it genuinely mattered:
“The count was the goal, but the joy, for both of us, was not about repeating it five times. It was about that one time when I made it to his need.”
This insight beautifully captures the essence of the journey: goals are not just metrics, they are moments of meaning.
Conclusion
In the end, this experience reminded both of us of something essential about human growth: we do not evolve in a straight line, nor do our goals unfold on a predictable timeline. What matters is not whether a goal is tracked perfectly, but whether it is written with intention, anchored in meaning, and preserved in a way that allows us to rediscover it when we are ready.
When we reopened those goals, three years later, entirely by chance, we were not just reviewing a list. We were meeting an earlier version of ourselves and realizing how much of Vijay’s ambition had already been lived into, reshaped, or transcended. Few coaching experiences offer this kind of longitudinal insight
The real power was not in the goals alone, but in being able to return to them with clarity, honesty, and a renewed sense of direction. This is what transforms goal-setting from a January ritual into a lifelong practice.
Writing creates intention.
Reflection creates insight.
Revisiting creates transformation.
And sometimes, all it takes to unlock that transformation is the simple act of finding your goals again—right where you left them, waiting patiently for you to return.
P.S. A Shameless Plug for Simply.Coach
We would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the quiet hero behind this entire reflection exercise: Simply.Coach
Had the goals been scribbled in a notebook, typed in a Word file, or buried in an email thread, this three year rediscovery would never have happened. The only reason we could revisit his goals with such clarity, years after the coaching engagement ended, was because Simply.Coach preserved every intention, reflection, action, and note exactly as they were written. It became, quite literally, our time capsule.
