Goals for the New Year - What do you want?

With the New Year almost upon us, it’s time to reflect on the year just passed and to consider the new goal posts for 2008. How did you go achieving your dreams and goals in 2007? Did you move forward, make positive changes to get better results, adapt to your situation?

Goals provide us with direction – a reason to get up everyday, a reason to do some of the stuff we may not like, in order to achieve the goal. It is important to reassess our current results and determine if we are on track to achieve our goals – long term and short term.

Consider goal setting like an jet with an autopilot. You set your destination (X) and flight path. Rather than a straight line, the plane ends up doing a zig-zag across the skies as the autopilot constantly realigns the direction to end up at X. Similarly, you need to keep an eye on your results and determine what action you need to take to make your destination.

This is important to do, even when it seems everything is going along nicely and you are hitting all your goals. Unless you have new goals to keep you going, you may lose the momentum that you have worked so hard to gain.

Consider a heavy round rock or boulder. To get it moving initially takes hard work, and for a long time it may feel like you’re not getting anywhere. And then, the rock starts to move a little, and you smile, knowingly. As the rock starts to move, it becomes a bit lighter to push, and as you push it moves more, and thus the rock builds up momentum. Once the rock has momentum, you still need to give it a push now and then to keep it going, for if you stop, so will the rock, and then you have to do all that hard work again. Keep the momentum going!!

So, now that you have reflected on 2007, what do you want to do, be or have in 2008? Why not think big this year. If you’ve easily achieved your goals in the past, stretch yourself in 2008 and most importantly, write your goal down. It helps you to really think about what it is you want, and it declares that this is what you are going to work towards. Yes, it does take action on your part, and this is much easier to do when you have the big picture in your mind. As Greg Norman says, “Begin with the end in mind”.

I wish you all an amazing Christmas and a fabulous start to the New Year.