New Year, New Changes, New Goals!

We have rang in the New Year, made our resolutions, and said goodbye to the holiday season. Unfortunately, some of us have already given up on your New Year's resolutions. While I try to spend more time focusing on my daily resolutions, I also realize the benefits of using the new year as a way to re-evaluate, re-focus, and re-set. There is something about the beginning of a new year that causes us all to look back at the past year and visualize our hopes for the upcoming year.

I have two main resolutions for this year...

1. Develop a 30 before 30 list by June of this year and start working on this.
2. Maintain more balance in my life.

Plans for keeping our resolutions typically start off strong, but often"fizzle out" long before our goals are reached. Once we get wrapped up in our busy lives and schedules, the hope of keeping our resolutions begins to decrease and most of us will give up long before we begin to think about our resolutions for 2013. So... How can we make sure that we do something different this year? While I don't have all the answers, here are some suggestions that can help you stay on track this year.

Create goals that are SMART

1. Specific- Be very specific about what you want to accomplish. So instead of maintaing a more balanced life. I will evaluate my life and write down the specific thing I need to do to make sure my life is balanced.
2. Measurable- I always ask how will I know (using my five senses that I reached my goal). Using my balance example... I will know when I have reached my goal when I am spending two hours a day everyday during the week dedicated to my family and when I am only spending one day of the weekend doing work.
3. Attainable- While I am all about setting high goals for yourself, make sure you set goals that have a realistic plan to get you where you want to go. For example, I gave myself for six months to develop a 30 before 30 list. I think this is very realistic and it gives me time to develop a list that is meaningful and that I will actually stick to.
4. Relevant- If it is not relevant, you won't make it past week 1.
5. Time Bound- How long do you want to work on this goal?

Happy New Year!