The Anti-Resolution: Set Your Goals and Get Busy Living in 2012

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I decided to try to write this article in 20 minutes. I have read several articles about bloggers who have done this and wanted to see if it was something I could do without reducing quality–sort of a challenge. The first thing that they say is that you should have something in mind to write about. This makes perfect sense, because if you don’t already have something in mind, it can sometimes take up to 20 minutes to come up with a topic you are passionate about. I have been there. It is not a fun place to be when your readers are expecting fresh content and you are drawing a blank.

Since we are on the second day of the new year, I am going to write about resolutions. The word resolution seems so arbitrary to me. Like it is this far off in the distance thing to accomplish. And because I keep hearing about so many failed resolutions, making one has lost its power.

Instead of setting resolutions, why not set goals. To me, goals are much more concrete. You state what you want to accomplish, you state when you want to accomplish it by and then you take the steps necessary to accomplish by that time. It is imperative that your goals be specific. For example, I visited a friend earlier today and we were talking about goals (his 2012 goals are awesome) and one the the things that he said to me was that he wanted to complete a 5k.

Completing a 5k is a great goal in of itself, but not having a time frame to complete it by, makes it this arbitrary thing that may or may not ever come to fruition. If you don’t know when you want to complete it by, you won’t know when to start training for it.

So if he had said for example that he wanted to complete a 5k by march, being that it is only two months away, he may have headed out the door right after I left and started his first run.

Goals are only as good as the actions taken to achieve them. It is nice to sit down and get out a piece of paper and get a warm cozy feeling as you write down all of your hopes and dreams for the new year, but more importantly are the specific steps you are going to take to achieve them. It is not enough to know the steps, you must write them down. Although it may not seem like it will make a difference whether you write them down or not, it most definitely does.

There have been studies done proving that writing a goal down gives a better chance of doing what is necessary to achieving it. It keeps it in the forefront of your mind and all of that. For example, one of my written goals for 2012 is to get better control over my finances.  Better said, I am going to set up an account in quicken, create a budget and begin sticking to it by January 31, 2012.

Whether you achieve your goals or not, time will continue to pass by. Ask yourself if you were at the end of your life looking back, what things would you have wanted to accomplish? Write them down, come up with an action plan, including a time frame and get busy doing them.

Note: My goal was to try to write this article in 20 minutes. I did it in 18. Now, I will spend a few minutes editing it and then click the publish button.

Happy, Healthy New Year

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1. Achieve Your Goals in Three Simple Steps
2. Using the Power of Momentum to Achieve Your Goals
3. 3 Step Guide to Living the Simple Life Now