How are you feeling now that the first week of 2013 is behind us? How would you rate yourself so far on your resolutions, goals, and sticking to the plan? What if I told you that I haven’t set my goals yet for the New Year. I have a good idea, lots of notes, but I haven’t committed anything to paper just yet, AND I’m totally ok with it!

Thank you to my friend Leslie Hassler of Luxury for the Home for reminding me of this great quote above. It’s like another way of saying “Comparison is the Thief of Joy”. Have you ever heard that one? It is so easy this time of year to jump on the goal setting, resolution making bandwagon and totally lose yourself. If you’re only doing it because everyone else is doing it, it won’t stick for long. 

So this year, in my way of NOT keeping up with the Joneses, I’ve come up with 7 Mistakes I’m NOT going to make while setting my goals for the New Year! I’m in it for me and no one else.

COMPARING – Holy cow, there are a lot of resolution lists and goal setting blog posts out there floating around already. I have personally not read many of them yet (maybe one or two), because I don’t want to fall into the comparison trap. I know myself all too well and it’s easy to do. DO NOT to compare yourself to everyone else, it really will steal your joy!

COPYING – If you haven’t set your goals yet like me and you’re reading everyone’s list, there is a good chance you may use a couple off of their list to fill yours in. I don’t think we do it on purpose, it just happens. DO NOT copy someone else’s goals. Take the time to think long and hard about what’s important to you and you alone.

RUSHING – Just because we’re already a week into the New Year doesn’t mean it’s too late to set goals and come up with a plan for achievement. DO NOT rush your list just to make a January 1 deadline. If it takes the entire month of January to figure out your goals for the year so be it.

PRESSURING – I am ignoring the outside pressure that says I should have all of my goals written and set in stone by January 1st. It’s just not going to happen this year for me. Maybe next year I’ll be ready to commit right away but this year it feels right for me to take my time. DO NOT let the pressure of others compromise the quality of your goals.

PLANNING – If you don’t block out time in your schedule to specifically work on goal setting (or anything else for that matter), the chances of accomplishing the task are low. Something always comes up or seems more important at the time. Schedule it and then stick to your schedule. DO NOT assume you’ll get it done if it’s not written into your schedule.

READING – I’m not just going into my goal setting without a roadmap or plan, I’m reading Hard Goals by Mark Murphy this year and when I didn’t win one of Whitney English’s “The Day Designer” I ordered myself one because she has some great goal setting exercises included in her daily planner. DO NOT go at your goal planning alone if you want to get the most of of it. Read a book, hire a coach, or use worksheets to help with the process.

FOCUSING – You may have read in a previous post that my word of the year is FOCUS. How can anyone possible accomplish their most important goals if their list is a mile long. How will you ever decide what’s most important and what to focus on. DO NOT make your list of goals and resolutions too long. 10 goals may even be too many for me this year. I may cut it down to 5 with a laser FOCUS approach and see how that works for me.

I plan on posting my Goals for 2013 by the end of this coming week. You see I am headed to Tobi Fairley’s MBA Camp this week to work on my business and that is when I have scheduled time to work out and write my short, laser focused list of goals. So stay tuned later this week to see what I come up with. I’ll also share some of what I learn at Camp which should be fun!

Oh and just to be clear, I am completely talking to myself in this post (I probably need this list more than anyone) but if any of it rings true for you too, I’m glad to help!

Here’s to not only setting our goals but achieving all of our goals this year!!

xxoo

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