Saturday, December 31, 2005

Goal Setting and New Years Resolutions

I love New Years. Just one more excuse to work on my goals. I really treasure this time. Goals give me power. They create a focus and a motivation. Any times in my life when I have felt shiftless, it is because my goals needed clarifying.

In preparation for working on my goals, I did a bit of internet research. Most sites agree that written goals are powerful. Goals work best when they are aligned with your values. That is why I like the 40 minute goal setting exercise that I described in my Nov 28th /05 post.

Some people never end up with goals for fear of setting the wrong ones. As Lyndsay Swinton says in her free eBook on goal setting. It is better to a have a written goal that is 70% right than no goal at all.

Some tricks I use on goal setting and New Years resolutions are:

1 – write them down.
2 – track them. (see June 13th/05 post)
3 – I like having 3 goals (see Sept 3rd/05)
4 – It takes 21 days to form a habit. Success is about habits. (see Oct 1st/05)
5 – I limit the number of goals I work on at once. Some people suggest 7 maximum. I prefer 3 to 5.

As I write this, I can see I am quite goal focused. I enjoy it. I study it. I spend time on it. I like doing it. I wrote about other goal setting tricks on Nov 28th/05.

Enjoy your New Years. Good luck on your goal setting.

3 comments:

  1. Two other things.

    Celebrate when you achieve the goal.

    Set a new goal before the celebration ends.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good advice. I tend to be weak on the celebration part. Thanks for the reminder.

    ReplyDelete
  3. hey. You might to contact the Martian Guy:

    www.martiananthropologist.blogspot.com

    You guys should write a book.

    Congrats on your success.

    ReplyDelete