DON’T MAKE YOUR GOAL AN EMPTY RESOLUTION

How many people are making New Year’s Resolutions? How many have an intention of achieving the Resolution? There are several important points to making a resolution you intend to keep. You need a vison or dream, you need an action plan, and, above all, you need a deadline!

Let’s start the process of defining your vision. Do an inventory of your dreams and write them down. Can you visualize them and verbalize them? This is the first step in goal achievement. To create the motivation to achieve your goal you must have a burning desire to reach it and that would come from a big dream. If you have made goals in the past and have not achieved them one reason may be that you did not have a burning desire and, therefore, not driven to achieve them. New Year’s resolutions fall into this category many times.

When you think about your life, your daily journey, how well do you plan and organize it? Your life’s journey is the MOST important trip you will ever take. So why is it that we spend more time planning a two-week vacation than planning our life’s work? Our life work would include a balance between personal goals and career goals.

A balanced approach might include personal goals in areas such as mental development, ethics, family, physical, financial, and social. The career and business goals might include the following: productivity, time management, people skills, and influencing skills.

You have most likely heard the term SMART Goals? Let me introduce WHYSMART Goals as follows:

W – Goals should be Written.

H – Goals should be Harmonious with you purpose and dreams in life.

Y – Goals must be Yours and reflect your personal vision and burning desire.

S – Goals must be Specific. Vague goals cause confusion and frustration.

M – Goals must be Measurable. Attain annual sales of 4 million dollars is a measurable goal; developing a goal of increased sales is vague and not at all measurable.

A - Attainable goals spark excitement and action. Goals that are beyond reach produce frustration and discouragement. Attainable goals should also provide a challenge.

R – Goals must be Realistically high and results oriented. Challenging goals stimulate creativity and commitment.

T – Goals must be Time bound. Goals that do not specify target dates tend to get lost. “Goals are dreams with deadlines.” – Diana Scharf Hunt

If you do not set “achievement dates” for your goals, you’ll get caught in the trap of “someday.” As in, “Someday, I’ll do that.”

Look at your calendar. You will find Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. What you will not find is Someday. So not only does someday never come, but it also does not exist!

WHYSMART is an excellent criterion to make sure that you are maximizing the goal setting process to your professional and personal advantage. Make sure that all your goals, tangible and intangible as well as short or long-term, are evaluated against WHYSMART, and you will see a distinct difference in your ability to accomplish anything you desire.

Start the year right with a review of your goals and actions.

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