I came across this article today and find it very helpful. It preaches a lot of the same things I always stress (see, I’m not crazy!) and does a good job of teaching goal setting in easy steps. With no further, ado, enjoy!

By Carla Vaughan

New Year’s Resolutions are great to get you thinking about what you want to accomplish in the coming year. Has anyone ever achieved all of their New Year’s Resolutions? I have never met anyone who accomplished all they set out to at the beginning of any given year.

The best news is that not following through on some New Year’s resolutions is great. Why? Our priorities change. Life throws crazy situations at us. We re-think our goals. It’s ok to update a resolution during the year. It’s also ok to eliminate one. We must be flexible enough to realize when our situations warrant a fresh approach. Other times, we don’t reach our goals and the reason(s) are unnecessary and avoidable.

Some of the most common reasons New Year’s Resolutions fail is:

1. Nothing is written down. You write down a doctor’s appointment because it is important and you don’t want to forget it. Write down your goals (resolutions).
2. Expectations are unrealistic. If you set a goal that is too high (and do not achieve it), you will not only experience frustration for not achieving what you want, but you will also be less likely to set goals in the future.
3. No plan to succeed. Setting a goal is meaningless unless you plan for and take steps to achieve the results you desire.
4. Motivation desperation. Hopefully waiting for some gigantic spring of motivation to all of a sudden flow through our veins is not realistic. Take the first step toward your goals and the motivation will follow. Action precedes motivation.
5. Resolutions are kept secret. Share your resolutions for the coming year with someone you trust. When you speak the words aloud and offer them to someone else, you are then accountable for them. Your trustworthy friend can nudge you in the right direction when you need a gentle reminder.
6. Not your goal. If the resolution has no real meaning to you, there will be no strong desire to achieve it. Just because your best friend wants to lose weight doesn’t mean it is the right goal for you. Your resolutions must be yours if you are to be fully invested (emotionally) in them.

To make the process of setting and achieving New Year’s Resolutions easier and more effective, focus on the following:

1. Set goals/resolutions and write them down including a date for completion.
2. Create objectives that can be done on a weekly or monthly basis that lead to the achievement of a specific goal. Objectives get written down, too. You will have one set of objectives for each resolution/goal. Objectives should have dates of completion, too. They may have to be revised, but having a target to shoot for is better than having nothing to shoot for at all.
3. Define specific tasks that can be done daily and/or weekly that target a specific objective. Many tasks will change from day to day and others may need to be revised depending upon how well they are achieving the objectives.
4. Do at least one thing each day to propel you closer to one of your goals.
5. Document your progress and reward yourself for your achievements.

The Success Journal

When creating resolutions (goals), it is imperative that you write everything down. Using a calendar or daily planner of some kind is great to define and follow up on goals, objectives and tasks. It also allows for the integration of your tasks and objectives into your schedule. If you don’t write it down, it will very likely not get done.

Start with your first resolution. Once you have identified the deadline for the resolution, write it in your planner. Set your objectives and determine the completion dates for them. When adding those to your planner, work back from the original resolution completion date.

For instance, if I want to save $1,000 for a weekend getaway, I write the date that I want to take the trip in the planner (say, May 31st). My objectives are to save in increments until the final amount is reached. So, I write my objectives in the planner as “Have $200 set aside by January 31st, $400 by February 28th, $600 by March 31st, $800 April 30th and $1000 May 31st.”

The specific tasks may be anything from collecting all loose change in a jar to selling un-needed items on ebay. Those can be incorporated into daily activities – again, written in the planner.

So, what is the Success Journal title all about? As you complete each and every task, reward yourself. You will have to determine what works best for you, but it can be anything from a gold star sticker on the page of the task that is completed to a journal entry expressing your feelings about having taken one step closer toward your goal. Yes, you reward even the little things, especially to start with. Gold stars are great as they are bold and very visible. If your New Year’s Resolution is to lose a set amount of weight, this is not the time to reward yourself with a bowl of ice cream.

Reaching objectives is worthy of a different kind of reward, but it, too, should have some relevance to the Success Journal. The more you see the successes in your past, the more motivated you will be to move forward. Not only that, but if you ever attempt something really, really scary, you can flip through your Success Journal and say, “Hey, if I can conquer that, I can handle this.”

New Year’s Resolutions can be very beneficial when well defined and handled properly. What’s on your list of things to accomplish this year?

Carla Vaughan, Owner/Webmaster Professional-Resume-Example.com

Carla is the owner of Professional-Resume-Example.com, a web site devoted to assisting candidates in the job-search process. She holds a B.S. in Business from Southern Illinois University and has authored several books.

For more information about writing goal setting, follow this link to Goals, Objectives and Tasks

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carla_Vaughan
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-Most-New-Years-Resolutions-Fail-and-How-You-Can-Prevent-It-From-Happening-to-You&id=403348

Another submitter sent me this article for publication. After review, I find it to be very helpful. If you have an article you’d like to submit, please email it to:

Mike@OnlyOneMike.com

I ask that you only send entries that have been proofread and that make sense. :-) 

Effective Goal Setting Made Easy

The next time somebody tells you that setting goals is really a lot of hype, tell him this: if life is a journey, how will you get there if you don’t have an itinerary? 

Break down a single goal into little pieces

Regardless of your goal’s size, you should have a plan of attack. Ask yourself:
What do I know about this?
What information do I have?
What information do I need? Where can I get it? 
What skills do I need to master? 
What other resources should I use? 
Is this the best way to do it, or is there some other way?

If you start looking at a goal as something that can be approached from many sides, you will not be too intimidated by it. Plus, you will also keep a more realistic frame of mind, knowing what you are capable of and in what area you’ll need help with.

Stop procrastinating

So you’ve heard this before. Big deal. Well, it is. Time wastage is one of the greatest crimes in history. If Henry Ford put off studying and tinkering with machines for another time, someone else would have improved on automobiles and he wouldn’t have gone down in history as a pioneer. 

If you’re used to procrastination, being bullheaded about a goal can seem scary at first. Try to set a schedule and then reward yourself each time you meet it.

If you like putting off reconciling your accounts, try marking your calendar for two or three days and set a time limit for each day, say 15 minutes and then spend those minutes doing nothing but reconciling your accounts. 

If you don’t finish the job, no sweat – you only allotted a quarter of an hour anyway. But try to make some progress within the time frame you set. Once you condition your mind that you can actually do it within a certain time period, you won’t find it too difficult to make schedules in the future.

Start small, but keep walking

Goals don’t necessarily have to be big ones. When you set your goal too high, you might find it too overwhelming and time consuming and just give up, or make another one, just as big. It’s akin to quitting cold turkey – there are setbacks.

To make goals believable and achievable, set them in small increments, complete with time, dates, amount, some details.

If you tell yourself, “I’m going to be an opera singer” and then sit around and wait for it to suddenly happen, you could be waiting all your life. Start with singing lessons for a month, and then a year and expose yourself to opera music. You can then progress to more singing lessons year after year. 

By breaking down your goals in smaller, workable units, you are more likely to make them come true. Remember, even the great ones had to start somewhere.

Be positive when stating your goals

Instead of saying, “I am not going to mess my exercise routine today,” say “I’m really busy, so I’ll probably just make time for 20 minutes on the treadmill.”  Stating your goal positively will help you view it as a good thing to do, and not as a byproduct of what you had to avoid.

Spread out your goals

So maybe we do have certain general goals that apply to all areas of our lives like, “I want to be successful” or “I want to be rich” but those would seem as far away as the Niagara Falls viewed from Hawaii. Instead, try making tiny goals for different aspects of your life, one or two for each, even more if you like. 

These areas are: family and home, career, social, physical, mental and spiritual. If you say, “I want to be a successful dad,” then try to make goals towards the development of your family life while still keeping an eye out for ways to improve your career and other areas of your life.

Don’t underestimate yourself

It’s tempting to sometimes just slack off, or let yourself off too easy. If you want to write the definitive American novel, then don’t try to churn out just a page or two a day when you know you are more than capable of writing five pages, even ten.

The fear of failure is sometimes to blame for setting our goals too low. How often have we said, “I don’t really want to volunteer for that project ‘cause I might screw it. And then my colleagues will make fun of me.” 

Remember that some fears are unfounded. How do you know you’ll actually ruin it? And how do you know for sure your coworkers will laugh at your effort? If you try to reason with your fears, more often than not, you’ll realize that there really is no reason for you to be reluctant and that in fact, you can do it.

Write it down

Putting your goal down on paper is more than just memorizing it. You are actually confirming your willingness to make it come true.  A written list of goals is also an effective reminder of what you need to do and once you’re done, a good review of your accomplishment.

Affirm it

Affirmation is really more than writing down, “I am going to buy my $750,000 home by Christmas” twenty times. It’s actually being conscious not only of your thought processes, but also of your acts during the day. 

If you’re trying to save money and then you pass by a shop window where a great pair of shoes seems to have your name on it, think, “If I buy those shoes, would I be making my goal of saving easier? Will I be able to meet my deadline if I splurge just this once? A few months from now if I don’t meet my deadline because I didn’t save enough, would I feel good about it?”

Small decisions can have a great impact on you working towards your goal. Remember that your goals are your road maps to success in life. Without them, you can lose your way. Although you can always retrace your steps, you might not have the time, opportunity, energy or resources you once had when you could have made your goals happen one by one.

Max Kezooki is passionate about helping others succeed in their career & personal life. To discover how to sleep better with natural means, visit:

http://www.kezooki.com/ezGaffurl.php?offer=vippromo&pid=1