Nearly every self-help book mentions the importance of goal setting. It is important even for those with a pedigree and born into wealth (I recognize not every student in this study was born into wealth but the median Harvard family earns at least 3 times the national average).

From https://sidsavara.com/why-3-of-harvard-mbas-make-ten-times-a...

“Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” In 1979, interviewers asked new graduates from the Harvard’s MBA Program and found that :

    84% had no specific goals at all
    13% had goals but they were not committed to paper
    3% had clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them

In 1989, the interviewers again interviewed the graduates of that class. You can guess the results:

The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all.

Even more staggering – the three percent who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

Edit: I had often heard of this study and just pasted the first reference I found. I would delete this post, if I could, as its credibility is questionable. Thanks femto.