2017 starts here......

Happy New Year... We start a New Year today, hopefully one that brings us all joy and happiness..

So what do you do on New Years day? Apart from get over the over indulgence of Christmas and New Year Eve? 😎

You could sit there with a blank sheet of paper and create your Top 10 New Year's resolutions? Well you could, I don't think I will be though... I'm not big on New Years resolutions myself.  By the time you are about 2-3 weeks in to the year you have either broken them or forgotten them, or why you even set them.

You could sit and set up your planner for the new year? Well yes but by New Years day I will have already done mine. Yes I'm that annoying person who has all his inserts printed out in September and can't wait for the last week of the year.

Or you could sit down and set your self some personal goals for the coming year, unless you have some from last year?

Again I'm not very good at setting those either. Strange as this might sound I was very good at setting objectives (another word for goal?) for my 10 engineers that I managed up until 2004. I was very good at setting their work objectives, but useless at doing my own!

OK you have got this far in to this post and you still we have no idea what we are doing. So let's cut the funny stuff and get down to serious business. If I help you I'm sure it will help me... deal? OK done.

So let us assume that New Years resolutions are similar if not the same as goals or personal objectives? That should make things a bit easier. You can put what you want at the top of the page, it is what is in the meat of the page that matters.

To get you started on what you should be considering for your goals for the year or years to come, these are your own personal goals, they might go towards meeting your goals at work, but you should consider work goals/objectives as a separate list.

When doing work goals you should discuss them with your line manager so they have a measure of what you are aiming to achieve and they can help you achieve them and report your progress accurately.

When setting your personal goals don't just think of them as just being 12 month goals. Some things will take much longer to achieve. If you have any that are say more than 2 years then consider them as long term goals and have some short term goals that contribute to you achieving your long term goals. To use an old cliché 'Rome wasn't built in a day'

If you haven't set yourself any goals before, or you have not been successful in doing this, start with some simple goals for the coming year, some simple ones that you can complete in say 3-6 months. This will ease you in to the process much better compared to tackling a list that might appear impossible to complete. We all have to build up to these things whether it is becoming an astronaut or just losing a few kilograms of weight or learning a foreign language.

Unless you have to, try to avoid having a hard fixed deadline by when you have to have completed one of your personal goals, this will only add to your stress levels. Although in certain circumstances you will not be able to avoid having a deadline, for example 'Lose 5 kgs in weight to be able to fit a wedding dress/suit for your wedding day' and the date is firmly fixed on the calendar... better give me/away all those Christmas chocolates then?

If you fail to achieve any of your goals, don't fret over it, try to analyse why you missed a target or why things didn't work out as you wanted. Quite often we might miss a target or goal because of things that are outside of our control, ok it might have been good to anticipate this when setting the goal, but that isn't always possible when you don't know what steps you are going to have to take to get to your goal. This is were breaking down a goal in to smaller steps pays off.

As well as setting your goals it is important to track them in some way. I try to journal each day and record what I've been doing, even if it is something simple like going to the shops, or writing this blog post or doing preparation for another post. It gives me something to look back on and see what I was doing, what I achieved etc.

If you want more detailed information or some examples on what personal goals to set Google is your  friend, just search for Setting personal goals  There are also dozens of templates on line that will help you record them, although you only need a blank sheet of paper and a pen really. I found mindtools.com had lots of information and useful templates.

I hope you have a successful and happy 2017.