Goals Work Better On Paper!

New Year is the time that many of us assess where we are both professionally and personally; and often make resolutions for the coming year.

The single most effective tool in making sure your goals last longer than the Christmas chocolates is so simple, but far too few people put it to use:

Get Your Goals on Paper!

We've no idea why such a little thing works so well, but evidence shows that people who commit to their goals in writing are much more likely to achieve them. This is reinforced when people talk about their goals with other people. It's almost as if that, once it's shared, with your notebook, with your neighbor, as much as possible, it makes the goal a living, breathing thing - it becomes more real to the person who wants to achieve it.

So as you're planning your New Years' resolutions, whether you want to quit smoking or get that big promotion, write them all down! To keep those goals alive, keep them somewhere you'll see them regularly. It could be on your nightstand, your day planner, in the front of your diary, or even make it into a screensaver. Think of what's going to work best for you.

Once you have your goals set, keep track of your progress and you'll keep the challenge fresh in your mind.

I like to suggest that people create written goals for all the important aspects of their life, encompassing personal happiness, professional success, and work/life balance.

Here are some areas of your life that you might consider creating written goals for:

- Career
- Health
- Spouse/Partner
- Family
- Finances
- Education
- Experiences
- Hobbies
- Spiritual/Religion
- Community
- Friends
- Recreation
- Travel
- Retirement
- Home

These categories are by no means your only choices, use them as a starting point and get creative with what's important to you.

Of course, there are tools you can use to make your goals easier to achieve:

Make sure that your goals are clear, achievable, measurable, and give yourself a timeframe. This isn't a new method but, in my work as a life coach, I see people all the time that set goals that are ambiguous, can't be measured, or that have such unrealistic deadlines that the person has very little chance of success, which achieves nothing but discouraging them. So, as we approach a fresh year in 2011, picture very specifically what success will look like for you.

Here are some examples of specific, time-bound, achievable and measurable goals:

I will call my best friend every week I will lose 15 pounds by March 31st I will get my reports completed the day before they're due.

I always think that it's best to make your goal a description of the end result, rather than how you'll achieve it - try not to confuse the means with the end. For example "Go $1,000 over my sales target by the end of the month" is a better goal than "Find an extra 20 sales leads every week to try to hit my sales target". Finding new sales leads may help you to achieve your goal, but it's not the goal itself.

Having a clear picture of what you want the end result to be gives you the freedom to meet your goal anyway that works, rather than slavishly following a single plan which you won't be certain works until you try it out. Giving yourself choices in how you reach your dream can keep setting and achieving your goals as fun, not a chore, which will add variety and value to your daily life. Using our example from before, if those 20 new sales leads aren't getting you your target, then you may need to source more leads or also call your existing customers as well. The main point is that, the clearer you can picture what success looks like, the greater your chance of getting to your destination.

The one caveat is that you need to be realistic about how many goals you set at once, and what deadlines you give yourself. Especially at this time of year, it's easy to get carried away, create far more goals than you could ever achieve, then feel over-faced and give up on all of them. Pace yourself and prioritise your goals, giving yourself the time and space to achieve a range of goals across the whole year.

As a coach, I spend a lot of time with my clients working through their goals, making sure they fit and enrich their daily lives and, most importantly, getting them written down! You can do it too. It's often easier to give yourself some quiet time to think about the things you would like to do, be, see, and have. While you're giving your goals some quality time, get your notebook out. You will be amazed at the result!