New Year, New You?

Let’s be honest; we somehow equate the beginning of each year with the chance to reinvent ourselves. And we do – for about a month. All our good intentions become crammed into the first week of the new year. Some are reasonable goals, such as contacting X number of potential clients per week. Others are not so reasonable, such as making it a goal to sell a novel by March (a novel we haven’t written yet). And by mid-February, our goals are long forgotten and we’re right back into that same old routine that we swore we were leaving behind.

Here’s a better idea – develop a system of checks and balances. Instead of making December 31, 2008 your deadline, push it up to January 31. And February 29 (take a look – it’s a leap year). And March 31. Whatever goals you’ve set for yourself will be successful only if you make yourself accountable much more often. It’s not enough to say “I’m going to make $100K this year.” You have to keep your eye on the revenue if you want any hope of meeting that goal.

I’ve said in past posts that I think Anne Wayman’s notion that we make goal setting an ongoing process is a wonderful idea. So why not sit down today and spend an hour or so deciding what you want to accomplish this year, what process you will create in order to accomplish it, and how often you’ll check in with yourself to see how you’re doing.

In a business course I took once, we were instructed to make a business plan. That’s the easy part, said the instructor, for it’s where you’ll write down all you want to do and how you’ll go about doing it. The tough part, he said, was sticking with your plan and harder still was amending it when necessary. As he put it, if you write that plan and then forget all about it, you’ve done nothing for your business.

So, what’s on your plan? How and how often do you plan to monitor your progress?