Happy 2019! First and
foremost, I hope that this year is off to a great start and that it is a
wonderful year for you both personally and professionally. To kick off the year, I want to talk about
the importance of setting goals. You
might ask yourself why it is so important to have goals. My mentor educated me on this just a few
years ago. He said that without goals,
you become like a hamster on a wheel going nowhere, and no one wants to work
for, invest in, or be part of a company that is simply spinning its wheels. This was a very influential visual for me and
enough to give me the incentive to create goals and always be moving forward.
In years past, I would set New Year’s resolutions. To be honest, they would hold for about the
first month or two and then wither away and not thought of again until the next
year - kind of like a business plan that is written, printed, and then tucked
away to collect dust. However, about three
years ago, that all changed for me. I
was tired of setting resolutions and not sticking to them. So I set out to change this which, in retrospect,
was resolution #1!
The first thing I did was change the word resolution to
goal. Being a competitive person, I like
the word goal. It worked better for me
than resolution. The second thing I did
was list out everything that I wanted to accomplish personally and
professionally. I then studied this list
and thought about what was realistic and what might take a few years to
accomplish. I realized while doing this exercise
that I needed to select a few slam dunks because success gives you the fuel you
need to keep fighting the good fight.
Whereas, the harder goals take more dedication, perseverance, mental
stamina and energy. Based on knowing
this, I selected five to eight goals that were going to be my focus for the
year, and they were equally split between the easily attainable and the “in it
for the long haul.” The next step was to
make it public by writing it down for myself and everyone around me to
see. I have learned that when you don’t
put it out there, the accountability factor just disappears and you have to be
accountable to someone even if that someone is yourself! By making it public, you also enlist a
natural support group of colleagues, family, and friends to help you achieve
your goals. Putting it out there also keeps you from forgetting them, which in
years past was my main reason for failure.
I would encourage you all to take the time to set goals for
yourselves. We all need to encourage
each other to improve, grow, and be better people. Here’s to a wonderful and prosperous 2019!
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