Happy New Year!!!! Welcome to 2012
I hope you all had a wonderful time of renewal, celebrating with your family and friends.
For my part, I had a really great time but must confess that the holidays went by far too quickly. It is a week-and-a-half of hanging out with family and friends and eating way too much. It is hard to see everyone, and I missed seeing some close friends this holiday. However, I had a lot of fun over the holidays and made plans for the new year.
One of my plans for 2012 is to turn my visions (see vision board) into reality. Many people set goals for the new year but fail to find a way to act out those goals. For example, I had this conversation with a guy friend of mine a couple days ago about him wanting to find a girlfriend this year. I told him it was a great idea, but I was unclear as to how he was going to act on that goal. He had the idea but lacked the tools for implementing the goal in his life.
You probably heard many of these resolutions from people last night:
- I’m going to lose weight
- I’m going to get healthy
- I’m going to make more money
- I’m going to get more active
- I’m going to jumpstart my career
- I’m going to write a book
- I’m going to find a wonderful partner
- I’m going to be a better athlete, student, etc… .
These are all good goals to set, but the more important part is to determine how are you going to achieve these goals. All the examples I listed above are general goals. I’m interested in HOW you are going to achieve these important goals in your life.
“A Goal without a Plan is just a WISH” - Larry Elder
Therefore, we need to set SMART Goals.
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There is always hard work involved when you really want something. I’m going to work on changing my New Year’s Resolutions (personal, professional, fitness, and health) into SMART Goals and then share them with you tomorrow. Like I said, I’m excited about turning my vision into reality. I learned from a good friend that a big job has to be broken down into small parts. She helped me organize my room into a masterpiece 
What are some of your goals/resolutions for this year??? Are they SMART Goals???
Happy 2012! Wishing this year is all that you want it to be!
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woo! I got a mention on Arianna’s “Random” Thoughts
ps, love that quote about goals being only wishes without a plan .. another one of my faves is: “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Happy New Year, BG!
I love that quote too! Happy New Year to you too.
You are actually getting a whole post today
What can I say you inspired me.
Thanks for this advice! It is very true, we all need to be aware of how we can accomplish our goals by making real plans. I love that quote – “a Goal without a Plan is just a WISH” – wise words!
Thanks EM! So true. I know you have a lot of inpsiring quotes and videos. Any that you wish to share? Hope you are having a great New Year.
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Your article rings very true and the breaking down big challenges into small easy bite sized chunks has served me well at work, at school and in my daily life. And as EM said, that quote “a Goal without a Plan is just a WISH” is a very good one. Especially as people make resolutions this time of year but have given often given up or forgotten by the end of Feburary.
I wonder about your friend goal’s and might suggest to him that he resolve not to have a girlfriend by the year but resolve to put more effort and work into to finding his match. Working to just have a girlfriend sounds like just any girl will fit the bill. Tell me if I am wrong but no one wants to feel like they are just filling a spot and women will avoid you if they feel that is all a guy is looking for. Not to add that he is placing undo pressure on himself for something that he can’t control like ie other people.
I think that having a resolution is great as long as it is a positive influence on your life and not placing unneeded extra stress on one self that can make you feel worse then better. One of my goals this year is to finsh the book I am working on and I hope that it is a SMART ideal.
So true John. Well said. There is so much that goes into goal setting. You will have obstacles along the way but you have to persist despite them.
If I were you – I would break the goal of writing a book this year into a SMART Goal.
Specific – make a plan for each week
Measurable – writing a certain amount of words per week
Attainable – Pick a number of words per week that you can actually accomplish given your schedule.
Relevant – Make sure your writing is for the novel
Time – give yourself a deadline. Also, if you need external rewards – you could say when i get all my writing done – every month i will get myself a small thing and at the end a big thing.
Thanks also about your comment about the relationship advice. I will use it when I write about relationships in a couple weeks.
Hope this year has been good to you thus far
Thanks for the ideal for a plan to approach my goal.
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Hi, just a quick comment, I found your blog while searching for illustrations of this quote. Larry Elder is not the originator of this sentence, but actually quoted it from Antoine de Saint Exupery, the French author of “The Little Prince.” Your illustration is a very clear description of the SMART principles. Thank you for sharing.
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