Bu Virtual Office Services - The Blog

The year has come and gone and here we are in a new year.

What are the top New Year’s resolutions each year? Eliminate debt, lose weight and develop healthy habits. You’ve probably heard your friends, coworkers and favorite radio hosts uttering those exact promises of change in the past few days.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that just as fast as these vague words are uttered, it’s just as fast that the resolution vows are broken. Yes, 75% of New Year’s resolutions are broken in the first three months of the year.

A *goal* on the other hand is the desired end result of the change you want to make and it’s specific. Goal setting is a powerful process where you take the time to meditate on your ideal future and think carefully about what steps you need to take to turn your thoughts in to reality.

How can you effectively set goals this year?

Brainstorm. Take some time in a comfortable, quiet place where you can be alone and uninterrupted. Think about where truly want to be by the end of next year. Where do you want to be in 5 or 10 years? What are your short term goals? What are your long term goals? What precisely do you want to accomplish? Examine the motives for your goals. What’s your big picture?

Make a written list immediately. Once you understand where you want to be, you can establish what goals are realistic and can break them in to small, obtainable pieces.

Create a “to do list.” Get specific on how you’ll attain your goals. What support or education do you need? What will you do daily, weekly or monthly to achieve each goal? Put in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure your achievements at each step of the way. Someone who states a resolution that they want to exercise more generally doesn’t incorporate it in to a "to do" list. The resolution sounds something like “I’m going to try to exercise more.” But if you’re serious about obtaining your goal, you’ll be more inclined to write “I will work out at 6am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 1 hour. I will do 20 minutes of cardio and 40 minutes of weight training. I have made arrangements with my best friend to support me on each of these mornings.” Which person do you think has a greater chance of showing up at the gym? When putting action items around your goals, be specific but reasonable - don’t expect to get everything done in January.

Monitor your success. Check in with yourself frequently. By looking at your goals once a week or once a month to see what progress you’re making, you’ll be able to adjust your list accordingly. I’m a member of a supportive group of businesswomen and we hold each other accountable for each others’ progress. We each fill out a form before we attend our meeting each week so that we can personally think about what we’ve accomplished, where we want to go and areas we need to work on. Some of the questions include: What did I plan to accomplish in the past week? What did I actually accomplish in the past week? What do I plan to accomplish in the next week? What do I need help with? We then have a roundtable session with an atmosphere of accountability and support.

Below are some resources that I’ve found helpful:

Franklin Covey Time Management Classes. I highly recommend investing in a time management class. I attended one a few years ago and it helped me to gain more focus around what my goals were and there was a marked increase in my productivity. A primary question that was asked during the class was “what are you doing each and every day that will positively impact your life in 5 years? 10 years?” Definitely something to think about!

Take Time for Your Life (Cheryl Richardson). This was required reading during my VA training at AssistU and I’m so glad it was. This book really makes you ponder about your emotional clutter, current relationships and the changes that you can make to improve your support system.

Wildly Wealthy. I did a free 90-minute teleseminar, along with several hundred other people, with the founder, Sandy Forster. She uses powerful visualization techniques for effective goal setting. One of the things that I particularly liked was when she asked us to close our eyes and imagine ourselves one year in the future and to create a journal as if we are living there. Our goals went from statements like “I want to get more clients”, “I went to renovate the back deck” and “I want to lose weight” to statements like “I had a great day at work working with two of my favorite clients. I have an abundance of work right now and it’s a great feeling. I’m sitting on the wonderful back deck that I just had renovated. It has lots of seating and I especially like the red silk pillows that accent the tone of the wood. I love the hammock I had installed and especially love the fact that I’m 30Ib lighter so I can get in and out of it easier…”

Where do you see yourself a year from now?