Ran across an interesting post that I’m going to share with you. Now while the post is in regard to running a business, I think it applies to anyone who makes their New Year resolutions. Why wait till the New Year, especially with today’s economic issues?
Why not make them now and use the New Year as a measuring point (eg: did you keep your resolutions?)
Here’s what the author has to say:
There is a reason New Year’s resolutions don’t work – it’s a lot easier to talk about changing a habit than actually doing the work to change it. So break the bad habit of setting New Year’s resolutions and start right now on your business planning for 2012.
There is a glaring issue I see from a lot of would-be successful entrepreneurs – people love to talk about their business ideas, but they never take the baby steps to set a plan into place and then execute it.
Another issue is that by the time you start on your goals on January 2nd, it’s already to late – 2012 already started! While you are now trying to plan out your year, your competition is already working on executing theirs. Plan now so you can implement your ideas starting January 2nd and get yourself off the ground and running in 2012 (or before!).
In my experience, my business is most successful when I plan ahead. In fact, if I don’t plan ahead, my ideas and projects fall by the wayside. I am very specific whether planning out my day, month, or year, because I know the success that persistent planning (and sticking to that plan) has brought me. You can do it too, you just need to be dedicated to planning and implementing.
There’s more, read the rest: No Time For New Year’s Resolutions – Start Working Now!
(By the way, there are some pretty good comments on that post.)
Jeff talks about goal setting and I think I’ll add one thing to his list.
Once you have an idea of what you goals are, write down the #1, #2, and #3 things that you need to do, every day, to achieve your goal(s.) I’ll bet reading emails and updating twitter aren’t on that top three. (wink)
As an example – If I want to get more traffic to this site, Gems4friends.com, my top three daily goals might be:
- Write a new post, every day – the post could even be a poll.
- Write an article elsewhere that points back to this site, or otherwise get links back.
- Research and plan ahead a bit so I know what I’m doing for the rest of the week and month.
What might be the top three if you’re looking for a new job? Trying to get into the school of your choice? Need to ace your exams? Or any other goal you can think of?
Don’t wait till the first, go ahead and start now. By the 1st it will have become a habit.