Do Be Have...and do it SMART!

A couple of thoughts for your new years resolutions. YOU CAN NOT DO A TO HAVE GOAL. Think of one of your goals for 2008. i.e. You want to have a better income. Take a close look at that goal. What will you have to do to have a better income? Well, you have to be more valuable to your employer, or if you are self employed, you have to be more valuable to your customers. You will only be better compensated if you better serve your source of income. Now, what do you have to do to be more valuable, to better serve? Do you need to take a class on computers, leadership, technical training or some other skill that will enable you to be more valuable? Do you need to read a book that relates to your field? Do you need to spend a day picking the brain of someone who is where you want to be? Work through your goal until you have taken it from what you want to have, to what you need to be to have it, and then to what you need to do to get there...and now the next step.

Make it a SMART goal.

Specific -What will I do?
Measurable- How will I know I did it?
Attainable - Do I have the resources, time or talent?
Relevant -Does this support my purpose?
Time table - When will this be reached?

bad example: I will become a better leader.
Good example: I will attend "Leadership Development" this March.

The second example is
Specific - attend a seminar.
Measurable - You will have gone to the class or not.
Attainable - You have the money for registration and you can take the day off to attend.
Relevant - The topic of the seminar supports your purpose, to be a better leader.
Time table- You have a deadline, the day of the seminar.

Good luck at accomplishing all you would like to accomplish this year! I will leave you with an excerpt from "The Greatest Salesman in the World" By Og Mandino regarding habits...I love it!

In truth, the only difference between those who have failed and those who have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success.Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure. Thus, the first law I will obey, which precedes all others is -- I will form good habits and become their slave. As a child I was slave to my impulses; now I am slave to my habits, as are all grown men. I have surrendered my free will to the years of accumulated habits and the past deeds of my life have already marked out a path which threatens to imprison my future. My actions are ruled by appetite, passion, prejudice, greed, love, fear, environment, habit, and the worst of these tyrants is habit. Therefore, if I must be a slave to habit let me be a slave to good habits. My bad habits must be destroyed and new furrows prepared for good seed. I will form good habits and become their slave.- Og Mandino "The Greatest Salesman in the World"