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First of all.....Happy New Year! I hope that 2004 is your best year yet. Let's get going on making that happen.
Ahhh New Years, what a celebration!! New Year's Eve parties. Watching the ball drop at Times Square. Parades on TV. And then the inevitable question: "What's Your New Year's Resolution?" At the beginning of 2003 I hired an independent research company to poll the masses for the answer to that very question (data available on request). The results fell into three categories: Alcohol, Diet and Finances. It seems that upon further research, the individuals whose answers revolved around Alcohol had a very bad experience with the substance the night before (or that very morning). That leaves us with Diet and Finances. The survey teams found that those who responded "Diet" and "Finances" had made this very resolution on other New Year Days in the past (averages were 23 years for "Diet" and 35 years for "Finances"). I had the same test population re-polled in early February of 2003 regarding how their New Years Resolution was coming along. 91% responded "What New Years Resolution?", 8% responded "Go Away", and 1% didn't respond, instead... they began to weep. There is even an internet poll that suggests that the "average" length of time that someone keeps their New Year's Resolution is only 17 days!
This is NO WAY to bring in a New Year, dear readers. So again I say "Forget Your New Year's Resolution". That's right. Drop it. Forget about it. Walk away. But let's replace it with something new and better. Ready to play along? Good. Just follow these three easy steps.
Step One: Fast-forward to the end of 2004. Now that you're there, look back on the year. What was the ONE THING that happened during the year that you're very, very happy about? What happened in your life or in your business? What happened in terms of your health? What is that ONE THING that you're reflecting on that has given you great pride and joy? This should be an accomplishment. Examples of business oriented accomplishments: Beating last year's revenue by 25%, Opening a new location, Bringing a new product line or service to market. Personal accomplishments: Taking that Vacation of a Lifetime, Quitting smoking, Having more free time.
Step Two: Now think about that accomplishment, and make a list of all the things that had to have happened for that to occur. Some of these things could be very specific, and some more general. For the ones that were general, continue to explore the very specific things that happened for them to come true. When you've got everything down to specifics, put the actions into present tense and map out what has to occur to make your year-end vision happen along with dates.
Step Three: Follow the actions and dates that we created in the last step to accomplish your goal for the year.
We just replaced your New Year's Resolution with an Action Plan for 2004, centered on the one thing that would make you most proud and happy with the year. There wasn't enough room in this article to give you a full example of this technique for planning, but I did put a great example on my website. Click on January 2004 Newsletter Example to see my plan for sending my youngest daughter to college. I think you'll enjoy it.
Till next time.....
2004 Jerry Wistrom and All Out Coaching, LLC
All rights reserved.
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