Because with the new year you might have made some resolutions, but going at your resolutions head on could lead to you failing. However you can set yourself little goals, breaking down your resolutions in smaller segments that are easier to achieve.

And each time you achieve one of these smaller goal it gives you a real lift, a real pleasing sense of achievement and a boost to greater chances of sticking with your resolutions to the end.

My resolution I wrote about here, and it was just to not be bored. I can set goals for me to achieve this. I can say I will do this and this and this, setting realistic deadlines, and working towards completing what I have set. I won’t be bored and so will achieve my resolution.

But this is not just for resolutions, that was just an example. You can set goals for anything in your every day life. It can be a great way to plan out your day, or even week. Establishing what you need to do and then setting out the goals to achieve them.

Do you have something important to do for work? With a deadline closing in closer and closer? well break it down into smaller bits and work towards completing them each. You may find your work to be a breeze this way.

I have set myself some writing goals here on Triond, and the badges help with that – to get to 500 views and 50 articles. After that the next goal would be to reach the next badges.

My advice if you are going to take this up is to start small. Set yourself small, easy to achieve goals. When you achieve these goals you will feel great confidence and have that sense of achievement, and then you can set bigger goals that you will have the drive to reach.

I’d like to take a couple minutes today and talk to you about your goals. Not all of us have the same goals, this should be fairly obvious. However most people still go about accomplishing their goals in the same way; they plan, they work, and then they succeed or fail. If our goals are really so different though, shouldn’t the way we go about achieving them be different? Does one size really fit all when it comes to achieving your goals?

As with so many other things in life, opinions on goal setting and then achieving those goals differ greatly. The principles are generally the same, but the practice is entirely different. If your goal in life is to be an astronaut, you’re going to take a much different approach than somebody whose goal in life is to be an actor, so why should you plan for those goals in the same way?

The vast majority of people make what I like to call someday goals. They tell themselves that; “ someday I’ll get the garage cleaned”, “ someday I’ll lose 20 pounds”, “ someday I’ll work harder for that promotion at work”, and I could go on and on but you get the picture. Today we’re going to talk about how to set goals that are tailor-made not only for your specific ambitions, but also for your personality.

You know your personality better than anybody else. While I could sit here and recite to you some pedantic psychobabble about personality types, I’d much rather just skip that step and let you do your own self-evaluations. Keep in mind more honest with yourself you are, the better the results will be for you. No one else is going to see how you plan for your goals, they’ll simply see the finished results. So based on your own personality type, and how you best learn (be it visually, by reading, by writing, whatever method you need to use to help retain information) let’s get ready to set some basic goals.

The first thing I want you to do, is set a goal for what you want your life to be like five years from now. You’ll need to worry about going into too much detail, just give a pretty decent overview of what you want your life to be like. You could include things like; the type of career you want, your relationship/family status (do you want to be married, have kids, etc.), and any other features that you feel are important to you.

Next, I want you to set a goal for what you want your life to be like one year from now. This set of goals should be more specific than the five year set, but still not too specific. The idea is with each set of goals, you want to get more and more specific. Repeat this step for six months, One month, two weeks, one week, and today. By starting with the general and working your way to the specific, you be setting yourself up for success. The idea is to create a series of small, easily attainable, goals that will help you build a pattern of success, and build confidence.

The first step to achieve our dreams is to remove the word impossible from our vocabulary, and our minds, and from our belief system.  Let us adopt a different thinking.  What was one impossible becomes, probable, then, it becomes possible, until it becomes a reality.  Many inventions have followed this path.  If we adopt this way of thinking, we will reach our dreams, turning them into probabilities, possibilities, and finally into reality.

When we give room to self-doubt and self-limiting assumptions, we are saying the word impossible, over and over, and we start to believe it.  Therefore, the next step is to remove the self-doubt and self-limitating assumptions that we entertain daily. 

You can dream, but you have to be proactive at your dreaming.  To put it simple, you can dream that one day you will win the lottery, but if you never play a ticket, you are self-limiting yourself.  You are not acting on your dream.  What would someone think if you told them a hundred years ago that one day you will send them mail that will take seconds – you would probably use another way of expressing yourself, maybe by saying that you will one day send a letter that will take an instant to arrive.  They would probably tell you that time traveling is impossible or that you are going nuts; maybe even commit you.  An email makes this impossible possible.

This is just an example to illustrate that your dreams are not impossible; it is up to you to dream them into reality.  When you start working towards your dreams, step by step, little by little, as you make progress, they will start to look more real, more possible.

1. Make New Years resolutions which will be meaningful to your life.  Don’t worry about other’s enhancements as much as your own.  As you become better, they will be enriched.
2. Be realistic.  Make promises to yourself which are attainable.  Perhaps you may want to lose a few additional pounds.  Keep your parameters in a realistic light.  Also purchase any equipment you may need to help your goal to be realized. 
3. Secrecy– it is best that you make your New Years resolution a thing of privacy.  When you announce your intentions to everyone, there will always be someone there to throw dispersion or cold water on your intent.  So the more private and personal, the better. 
4. Include God in your aspirations.  He should be your First, Last, and Best Partner in helping you arrive at your goals.  Pray as you go throughout the year, knowing He can give you the success you need. 
5. Be prepared for difficulty and barriers.  Make plans to meet them head on should they occur.  A New Year resolution represents an unchartered course.  You will have times of despair, but do not be discouraged, just continue moving in a positive direction and go around your difficulties. 
6. Allocate adequate and reasonable amounts of time to make your New Year resolution come true.  In your busy schedule, carve out specific times for yourself to work on your New Year resolution.  Keep track, perhaps on a log, or in a notebook, how you are doing and evidences of your achievements. 
7. Allow your family members to help you.  In case you have told family members of your plans, give them a part in helping you to achieve your New Year resolve.  Making them a part of your plan will also help them to be more sensitive to your needs and feel that they are helping you to make a difference. 
8. Have islands of rewards— periodically reward yourself for your efforts by taking yourself out to lunch, taking a mini vacation, or buying yourself something new for your wardrobe.  In this way, you keep yourself motivated and happy. 
9. Love yourself through the year.  Don’t beat up on yourself for the times when you miss the mark.  It’s not so much the point of arriving, as how you are when you arrive.  Don’t be cruel or unreasonable to yourself.  Please do not put yourself under too much stress to achieve your goals. 
10. Chart your way to success.  You can divise a personal chart and color it in as you go on to a victorious end.  At the end of the year, hopefully you will have a chart that shows you have taken on the challenge and been a winner. 

    For you and many more, may your New Years resolutions this year be the best ever!  If you do real good at it, sit down and write a bestseller to inspire others. 

First, you must focus on your goal. Look at it from all angles, and figure out the best way to accomplish it. After you have decided on your plan of action, don’t lose sight of it. Keep it in mind at all times. Write your goal down, along with the means to accomplish it, and keep it handy so that you can look at it often. Be single minded in the pursuit of your goal. Keep your focus steady.

Then you must stick to your plan. Don’t stray off track. Be dedicated to your course of action and yourself. Keep your resolve strong no matter what obstacles may get in the way. You are capable of achieving your goal, you have to believe that. You have to do whatever it takes to make your goal a reality. It’s not always easy to stay dedicated, but it is imperative if you are to succeed.

Now that you have your focus and you are dedicated to the plan, you just have to follow through with it. You must be determined that you will achieve your goal. Know that you will not let anything stand in your way. There may be setbacks, but you will overcome them and move ahead. Others may try to dissuade you, but you will not let them. You will keep your eye on the prize, and do whatever it takes to win. You are the master of your own destiny; you have the power to realize your dreams.

If you can stay focused, dedicated and determined in your quest for whatever goal you are after, you will succeed. Let nothing or no one stand in your way. If you really want something, you just have to go after it, and never give up. Focus on the goal, be dedicated to seeing it through to the end, and stay determined in the quest. You do have the power within you to accomplish your dreams.

In today’s ever-changing world, to be an analytical thinker means “more-of-the-same-at-different-times”. Only time changes, not “how we think”. It’s being reactive to circumstances and events. Whether we call that firefighting, prioritizing or simply dealing with our daily issues in family, work and play, it is a one-dimensional fashion of thinking.

But, in this article I am addressing “strategic thinking” or better yet, “systems thinking”. After all, that’s the way our world turns: systems. Everything is a system. From our solar system to our digestive system, from our water filtration to our government, these are all systems. It’s the natural way the world operates. There is an ‘input’ and an ‘output’, thus creating the ‘throughput’. Simple, right? Of course!

A system is made up of a set of components that work together for the overall objective of the whole (output).

Only we don’t quite see it that way, as we choose to concentrate at issues one at a time, and those at hand. The greater ‘whole’ of our own personal system in the way we think is not taken into account. Unless there is a conscious effort in rising above it all to see the big picture, we cannot think differently, thus causing us to fail at various steps of our lives.
How does one think “strategically” (or systematically) to perform the holistic view?
Systems Thinking is not a new fad. It has been explored and much talked about is you go ahead a research the topic. Actually, it has been an item of research for close to 75 years now. It all starts with the end in mind, or otherwise called “backward-thinking”!
It’s like reading from right to left: definitely not a natural habit!
Let me explain a simple way of understanding the method of thinking, using the alphabet to identify the different phases:

Phases A, B, C, D and periodically E (notice how you read from left to right at first, follow the arrows and the steps below the diagram:

As you start thinking about your output, (Phase A), otherwise called your desired outcomes, end in mind or overall objective, it is often defined as a Vision and Mission Statement with its core values.

As the end in mind is more and more defined, its goals for achievements are to be tracked by success measurements (Phase B). This prevents us from falling back to becoming reactive as we map out our plan to that desired outcome. At this phase, you develop the key indicators that will tell you ‘how’ well you are achieving your objectives as it relates to your overall goal defined in Phase A.

Phase E, or Environmental Scanning, is a periodic review of what changes around us. For instance, factors such as competition, market-share, politics, economy and weather-related issues are all probable or possible boundaries that will affect our future state. It requires attention on a regular basis. This is strategic-know-how at its very core!

The thinking process becomes more analytical as it moves into Phase C: the current state. This actual state or position we are in, is examined for its strengths and weaknesses (SWOT) so as to identify the areas that require improvement to allow us to move on to Phase D, the through put. Phase C is critical as it develops core strategies for achieving the end in mind. Remember strategies are actual “actions”.

As strategies (how-to) are implemented, priority actions are placed and all this movement happens at Phase D. It’s also called ‘closing the gap’ as you apply the strategic thinking process and check regularly with “B” and “E” to ensure all is moving towards the end in mind.

That’s Strategic Thinking or “Systems Thinking”!

Start using Systems Thinking in your life decisions and at work and not only feel the change, but obtain the RESULTS! And, warning to those who will use it, it’s highly addictive!