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Techniques to make those New Year's Resolutions Real
by Sheri
McGregor
|
Here are a few
tips to make NY goals a reality --
1. Accountability.
If you make yourself accountable, then you may be more likely to
achieve your goals. If it's weight loss, say, then you might want to
get a partner or a group that you are accountable to.
2. Self-monitor.
Here's another trick that works with goals. If you just set a
resolution or goal, then don't check in with yourself time and
again, then how will you know how you're doing. Set the goal, then
set another to check in regularly. The accountability can also help
here. For instance, I meet with a small group once a week, and we
will have specific sharing dates where we talk about how we're doing
with the goals we set and shared at an earlier goal-sharing meeting
. The schedule varies, but we check in every three months or so on
average. This year, we plan to check goals status once every six
weeks.
3. Set big goals, and make smaller ones
that get you there. Big goals seem
huge, and yet small goals that move you in the direction of them are
more easily achieved. For instance, if you want to finish writing a
book in 2003, then set some smaller increments as goals, too. A
chapter a month, perhaps. Or a scene a week. Whatever seems logical
and which you can achieve with some challenge. At the end of three
months, you then have some attained goals in your "done" basket.
Another example is setting small financial goals toward the bigger
goal of putting a down payment on a home.
4. Be specific.
Nothing so vague that you can easily weasel
out of accomplishment. For instance, a vague goal might read
something like this:
Get out more query letters (or, sales pitches, business brochures,
cold calls, dinners cooked at home, etc).
A more specific goal makes you more accountable. Change the above
to: Get five query letters (or insert appropriate item) out each
week, for a total of at least 20 a month. The specifics need to
include the HOW of getting the goal accomplished.
Here are some other ninny-goals (NG), with their better
counterparts:
NG: Lose Weight
Better:
Lose eleven pounds by July, so I can
wear the shorts I bought for my trip two summers ago when I was 11
pounds lighter. That means I need to lose about two pounds a month.
I will do this by exercising four days a week before work, and using
the recipes I find in my "light" cooking magazine instead of
settling for fast food because it's convenient. I know I will need
to plan, and will take a list when I food shop, and this is
something I'm willing to commit to.
NG: Learn to introduce myself and my business better.
Better:
Make up an "elevator speech" of about thirty
seconds so I have something punchy and informative prepared for
those times when I need to say what I do. Then, practice the speech
every logical chance I get. Analyze how the speech went and record
the results in order to alter as needed.
NG: Be a better mom.
Better: Nix that
favorite curse word that pops out whenever the kids spill soda on
the rug. ay "fiddlesticks" instead, even if that means correcting
myself and saying "fiddlesticks" after I say the bad word. This way,
it will become habit.
NG: Spend more time with my family, and learn to put my work down.
Better: Designate
Sunday as family day, and don't answer the business line, or email
that day.
These are just a few samples. The idea is to
figure out what your goal is, then be specific so that you can
accomplish it. Vague goals are just New Year's resolutions -- the
kind that remain there, year to year.
At the end of the year, you could be looking back over the twelve
months, feeling proud of your growth as a human being and the
accomplishments you've achieved (whatever the important ones are to
YOU). I'm aiming for that satisfying endpoint as my highest goal
this year.
Happy New Year.
Sheri McGregor
www.motherswhodream.com |
All material on the www.motherswhodream.com
website is copyrighted
by Sheri McGregor and may not be reproduced without express permission.
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