Business, Self Development

All week I have been bombarded by emails, my favourite blogs, Facebook messages and Tweets about every man and his dog’s new year’s “resolutions“. You know what? Good for you! I am so glad that you managed to make so many errors in 2008 that you must pledge to resolve these self-guided misfortunes in 2009…

Surely I’m not the only one out there that interprets the word ‘resolution’ as “a commitment to right a wrong doing, solve a problem or resolve ones laziness?”

Dictionary.com definition of “Resolution”:

1. The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination.
2. An explanation, as of a problem or puzzle; a solution.
3. The part of a literary work in which the complications of the plot are resolved or simplified.

Traditional New Year’s Resolutions make a MASSIVE ASSUMPTION: that we have made many mistakes, we have many problems we must change our terrible ways of the past. OK, OK, I’m being a little dramatic now but for me there is a negative connotation that unnecessarily surrounds New Year’s Resolutions.

Alternatively, we could set GOALS for 2009. Clearly defined, written goals that we strive to achieve and often over-achieve, until years end. In which time we reflect upon our goal setting success and set new goals for the following year.

Everyone’s got goals right? WRONG! Can you physically point to where you goals are written down and displayed in your workspace right now? You don’t have goals until you have written goals.

Why don’t you make your New Year’s commitment to stop pretending to self-motivate through dreamy resolutions and instead write down 10 clearly defined goals for 2009?

SMART Goals:
A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants, SMART usually stands for:

• S Specific
• M Measurable
• A Attainable
• R Relevant
• T Time-bound

Instead of having “write a business plan” as a goal, it is more powerful to say “To have completed my business plan & begin implementation by December 31, 2009.”

Have you got goals or resolutions? Share some below.

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