Making your new year resolutions work

by | Jan 3, 2012 | Develop yourself, Recommendations, Tips & Tricks

Every year on New Year’s Day I have a glass or two of champagne and spend some time reviewing the previous year (celebrating my successes and asking what I can learn from my less successful initiatives) and planning my personal and business goals for the next year. Here are some thoughts that work for me and may help you to set your personal new year plans too if, in the past, you’ve set resolutions that haven’t been achieved.

Zig Ziglar, the American motivational speaker, says that it’s your attitude not your aptitude that determines your attitude; as an Australian, I reckon that it’s the boomerang factor… you get back what you give out. That’s why I’m always “fantastic” because my mind sets out to achieve what I feed it. Every day tell people you’re fantastic, incredible, and sensational and see the difference. You’ll be amazed at how well it will work for you too.

Then I always have four “must dos” to achieve every day…

  1. Laugh every day because a day without laughter is a day without wine.
  2. Learn every day because if I’m ripe I’m rotten whereas if I’m green I’m growing.
  3. Help somebody every day because what goes around comes around (its also the hardest to achieve you’ll often see me driving around at midnight trying to find a little old lady to force across the road so I can go to bed!).
  4. Show or tell the people I love that I love them.

Then I set my goals for the year. Most people aim at nothing and hit it with amazing accuracy so you’ve gotta have something to aim at.

So set yourself some SMART goals and then you’ll achieve what you want to achieve much easier than just leaving it to hope and luck. Put simply, dreams become goals when you make them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timebound.

And take it from me. Sixty percent of success comes from setting your goals simply because of the six P rule… proper planning prevents pretty poor performance.

I’ve found that if you have too many goals you won’t achieve them. Setting 2-3 business goals and 2-3 personal goals greatly improves your chance of success.

So there’s some food for thought to make this new year a great year.

Have a great new year from all of us here at the Business Growth Centre.