Almost every newsletter I’ve seen this week has been dishing up advice on New Year’s resolutions to increase your likelihood of success. I’m going to avoid it, simply because I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions.

In my view New Year’s resolutions tend to be short lived and are fuelled by guilt and other inappropriate motivators. Instead, my view is that you should always be setting goals, working toward those goals and regularly reviewing progress and relevance.

This is not a once a year activity. Goals are absolutely vital to your success and to keep you on track they need to be revisited regularly.

Sometimes you need to change them because they are no longer relevant.

I review my goals monthly and always keep them posted on my office wall in a prominent position. This way they are always there and I get subliminal reminders even if I don’t really study them each time they are in front of me.

So, if you haven’t reviewed your goals for 2007, now is a good time to do it. Before you get too busy, schedule time in your calendar right now. If you wait to find the time it won’t happen. And at the end of ’07 you’ll find yourself behind where you want to be and wondering how to make 2008 a better year.

Your goals should include personal goals for:

  • Wealth

  • Health

  • Social

  • Spiritual

As well as business goals

  • Revenue

  • Profit

  • Strategic

  • And a real stretch that when you achieve it, will create a breakthrough.

I like the idea of a vision board as a continual visual reminder of what I am working towards.

So once I’ve set my goals, I look for visual representations of what I’ve set out to achieve. These can be simple ideas expressed in writing or they can be pictures of something you are working towards. For example in the centre of my board I have a cheque in my name with the amount I want to have when I retire. This is surrounded by pictures I’ve cut from magazines that represent my other goals. I have a picture of the new boat I want, pictures of Hawaii; the destination of my next holiday. Well you get the idea!

If you haven’t tried it, make up a vision board. It’s fun to do, it’s inexpensive and more importantly it works. Try it, you’ll see.