Another year is in the books. I will assume that you did the best you could with what you had this year. For some it was amazing and others it may have been quite dreadful. Hopefully, we all look to turn every situation into a positive. So much has changed in the world and you being an entrepreneur it’s safe to assume much has changed in your life! With change, hopefully comes progress; progress that you can evaluate by taking a look at your goals of 2009 and checking what you have accomplished.
The tough part is that many of our 2009 goals came in the form of a list of ten New Year’s Resolution that was scribbled down on the some cocktail napkin. With most New Year’s Resolutions there is little to no real goal setting or accountability. Not to say that resolutions are bad, but there needs to be a system in pace to make sure you are accountable for what you are looking to accomplish.
If you are like me, you are excited about making the most of the upcoming year. We need to make this the year that we go beyond New Years Resolutions and achieve what we are meant to achieve.
With all that being said it takes a little more than putting a pen to a note pad. It takes understanding, planning and action to accomplish great things in 2010.
Understanding
Start With Resolutions
We have all fell victim to poor New Years Resolution planning before…there is no need to be ashamed. Typically what happens is you jot down a few things you would like to do in the new year. The resolutions are normally 180 behavioral shifts from stuff you did the year before. That paper you jotted down your resolutions on is supposed to keep you accountable throughout the new year…fool proof right?
Try this…
- Jot down everything you want to accomplish in the new year.
- Explain to yourself why you want to accomplish each item.
- Move you resolutions onto a goal list and see if each resolution fits within your master plan.
Planning
Set Your Goals
Goal setting is where your real planning takes form. These are the items that you are a 100% accountable for. These goals should be near and dear to you and act as a constant reminder of what needs to be accomplished.
Here are the steps you can take to make sure you don’t only set goals, but you accomplish your goals:
- Take your resolutions and begin to separate them based on category. (Example: write for Mashable goes in the Personal Branding/ Social Media category –> Finish my first course of French goes in the Personal category.)
- Start building goals around resolutions you have set in each category.
- Make sure each goal is measurable.
- Give a timeline for the accomplishment of that goal.
- Access all your goals and begin to reduce your list. Begin to take away the extraneous and time consuming goals that won’t fulfill your overall mission. Note that reducing your scope of goals can be even more important that building you goal list out. If your list is too big, you may be overwhelmed and discouraged by your lack of progress because you spread yourself too thin.
Last but not least…
Action
Track Your Milestones
I learned that goal lists often get lost in the shuffle (just like resolutions). Therefore, I made an effort to break down my yearly goals into monthly action plans. Monthly action plans is much easier to manage than a list full of goals. I have seen the best results when I:
- Take goals from each category which need to be addressed right away.
- Break them down into quantifiable goals that can be met over the course of a month. Example) If your goal is to have 20 guest posts published in 2010, your action plan for January should be to write 2 guest posts for x and y blogs.
- Create milestones for each week. Over the course of 7 days, what will need to be finished in order to finish up your monthly goals?
- Take a Post-it® and write out what you need to accomplish for that day. Make sure to keep it short and sweet (maximum 3 medium sized tasks). This will make sure you never loose site of the task at hand.
Follow these this simple system and you are much more likely to keep you resolutions this year! I can’t wait to see what you accomplish in 2010.
[Photo cred: sourskittled]
