Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and is ready to hit the ground running in 2014. For a lot of people, a new year means new goals. I know I spent a few days in December looking back on 2013 and making plans for 2014.
I’m a big fan of writing goals for the year – personally and professionally. You can call them resolutions if you want but some people think that’s just setting yourself up to fail – use whatever term works for you. I prefer to use the SMART method when I set a goal. SMART is a mnemonic for the criteria for what a goal must be:
S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Action-based (Some variations says A stands for Attainable)
R = Realistic (Some variations say R stands for Results-focused)
T = Time-sensitive
I’ve found this method really works for me. To give you an example, one of my 2014 goals is to celebrate the law firm’s second anniversary and that I’ve moved into a brick and mortar office by throwing an open house event at my new office in January. What are your goals for 2014? Please share them in the comments below and if there’s anything I can do to help you achieve them. Apparently sharing your goals with others helps you achieve them too because people will be asking you about it and doing what they can to support you and your goals.
Sometimes my goal feels too big to be attainable all at once so I break it down into manageable pieces, and usually assign a specific deadline for each portion.
One thing I often ask myself as I’m setting SMART goals is how am I going to achieve it. If my goal involves meting more business contacts I have to figure out who I want to meet and where I’m going to meet them. If my goal is to make more money, I need to have a plan to either bring in more clients or make more money from each person I’m working with. So don’t just thing about the “what” but also the “how.”
I saw a fascinating video recently about why New Year’s resolutions are more successful than other goals. It’s pretty interesting and worth a few minutes of your time.
I look forward to helping you achieve your goals for 2014. Please share your goals in the comments below and feel free to connected with me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can email me. You can also subscribe to the Carter Law Firm newsletter.
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