From the book "What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School" by Mark McCormack there is classic and well quoted case study about the power of written goal setting. I read about it years ago and it has stuck in my mind ever since.

It was done on students at the Harvard Business School MBA in 1979. 

Students were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?".

Only 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13% had goals, but they were not in writing; and 84 % had no specific goals at all.

They were interviewed again, ten years later and it was found that the 13% of the class that had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% that had no goals at all. The 3% of the students that had clearly written their goals down were earning, on average, 10 times as much as all of the remaining 97 % of students!

Now that is powerful stuff!

The great things is that you can apply this to all areas of your life, including your cycling.

So, spend 5 mins writing down your cycling goals and see what happens. You have nothing to loose and it could be the best 5 minutes you have spend all year on improving you cycling performance.