Importance of Writing Down Your Goals

Goal setting leads to success

Many times we say we are going to do something, we often end up not doing it because we forgot about it. It is because we never made a real commitment to begin with, so it becomes easy to let things slide.

Why You Should Write Your Goals Down

To make a commitment, writing your goals down is like signing a contract with yourself a promissory of sorts. 

When you write your goals down place the piece of paper where you write those goals down where you see it every day, so you are constantly reminded about what you set out to achieve. This makes it impossible for your goals to slip your mind.

Writing down a long term goal into smaller short term goals which together get you to your long term goals, will let you see you progress as you tick or scratch off all that you have achieved, this also lets you see how much work you still have left for you to accomplish your goals.

If you write down the reason you wanted to achieve you goals in the first place, you are inspired and motivated everyday by the memory brought about by the visual stimulus which is the promissory note/contract with yourself.  

The written goal also serves as reference in the end when you evaluate your progress, you can look at your list of goals and check which goals you achieved and which ones you failed to accomplish, upon analysing you can then write down what you think you did wrong and what you can do to make sure you correct the mistakes you made the first time around. Even in failure you will learn, so you know that you did not waste time but gained valuable experience.

Also apart from writing your goals down you should tell people what you want to achieve and when, so that they can hold you accountable if you do not do what you publicly shared with others. You should share it with your friends and family members. Anyone that will make you feel like shit if you fail at what you set out to achieve.

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Farewell London - The end of a great Olympics

London 2012 Was Awesome

Micheal was shocked he lost by mistiming his touch and Chad had his perfectly timed with a strong finish

So the Olympics have come and gone, and they have left us with many memories. I can’t wait for 4 years to fly by once more so that I can witness the Brazil Olympics. A lot of records were broken during these Olympics from the pool to the track, and it was all exciting to watch, it amazing how 2 weeks vanishes in a flash, it’s amazing how 4 years of hard training ends in the making of sporting legends and how other fail when it comes to the main event when they have been dominant in the years coming up to the Olympics.

America had the most medals, that was to be expected from the sporting super power, they dominate most events, especially the pool, basketball and track and field events. Australia had a disappointing Olympics this time around, the gold medals seemed to elude them especially in the pool, but one great swimming countries fall means other smaller fish get to rise to the occasion. And the smaller fish did rise to the occasion this Olympics saw France dominate the men’s freestyle events, it saw South African Cameron Van Der Burgh win gold and break the 100 breast stroke even though his speciality was the 50m breast stroke, this Olympics saw future swimming legends born when 20 year old Chad le Clos from South Africa won gold in the 200m butterfly, beating Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian of all time who had dominated the pool for more than a decade, Chad then went on to take silver in the 100 butterfly final, this time the legend made sure he won.

Chad agrees to go with girl to her matric dance which is like prom 

Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympian of all time in London 2012, with a total of 22 medals and 18 gold medals; no one comes close to matching him. Sadly for us this is said to have been his last Olympic games.

The high light of this Olympics for me was again just like 4 years ago, the 100m dash final, to see who the fastest man in the world is, and with no surprise it was once again the legend, Usain Bolt. The man is a beast, no one can catch him or even come close to him, it was as if he was racing himself and the rest were in their own race for 2^nd and 3^rd position. It was good to see that Jamaica have an even stronger sprinting team now. They are going to dominate athletics for a long time, I tell you. When they broke the 4*100 relay they stamped their speed authority, the U.S.A team was good but not good enough. With Yohan Blake and Bolt in the same team (2 fastest men in the world), there was no way any other team would win that relay final. Bolt and Yohan Blake finished 1st and 2nd for both the 100m and 200m sprint events, which shows just how awesome the Jamaican sprinters are.

I do not know about other countries but our (South African) athletes arrived today and were greeted by tons of proud supporters at the OR Tambo international. There is plenty to be proud of, I know the athletes who won medals are getting cheques, but I hope they get proper funding in the way of sponsorships so that they continue to do great work and I hope that sports such as rowing are now promoted and funded since the sport has gained some media coverage since we won gold in the men’s light weight 4 men rowing.

Oh and before I forget Great Britain did really well during these Olympics, using their home ground advantage effectively, so well done to the Brits and the city of London for putting on a great show. 

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The London 2012 Olympics are underway

This weekend the Olympics began, they began with an opening ceremony just like any other world competition. I was not that impressed by the opening ceremony but it had its moments of awesome entertainment like when Mr Bean was doing what he is famous for (making people laugh). I also enjoy it when all the athletes from all the participating nations walk into the stadium. The big teams like America, China, Great Britain and other countries have hundreds of participants thus increasing their probability to win more medals, whilst the smaller sporting nations have fewer participants. South Africa, my country does not have a lot of participants as always but hopefully we are going to get more medals than in the last Olympics in Beijing.

Some events like rowing, tennis, badminton, hockey, soccer, basketball, archery, gymnastics, cycling and possibly other sports which are not that popular have already began with China and America leading the medals(no surprise there). Oh I forgot to mention that swimming has also been one of the main attractions on the early days; there have already been a few finals and Olympic/world records broken.

How South Africa Is Doing So Far

4 years ago South Africa only managed to win 1 medal and it was a silver medal. That was a very disappointing year for us. This year on day 2 we have already managed to win 1 gold medal in the pool. Last time no medals were won in the pool even though the swimming pool is one of our strongest events.

The South African soccer team Banyana Banyana managed to qualify for the Olympics, being only one of two African representatives at the London Olympics. Banyana Banyana is the lowest ranked team in at the Olympics so basically the odds were stacked against them. They were beaten 4-1 during their opening match against Sweden, and then beaten 3-0 by Canada, they face Japan tomorrow, and it is not looking good for the South African ladies as the Japanese ladies are the current world champions. They were unlucky to be grouped with teams that are all in the top 7 in the world when they are not even ranked in the 50s.

South African Swimmers

A few of our swimmers managed to do well in the heats in the first couple of days on to do badly during their semi-finals and finals.  But the highlight of the London Olympics so far has been Cameron Van Der Burgh who became the first home-bred male South African to break a swimming world record. He got better with each round, he broke the Olympic 100m Breast stroke record and went on to break the world breast stroke record during the final to win South Africa’s first gold medal during the London Olympics. The South African 100 relay team did well during the qualifiers and were neck to neck with the French, who eventually won the gold in the final, but South Africa’s performance during the final was disappointing and they did not win a medal.

That is all for now, let us hope there are still more medals to be won by South African Athletes in the coming events.

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