New Year, Fresh Start

2016 is here and under way. While you can hit the proverbial "reset" button at any point in your life or during the year, this is typically the time of year most of us reflect on the past 12 months, and look forward to the next 12 and beyond. We plan, prepare, write out goals and on paper make our next 12 months the best we've had yet. And then life happens, we get distracted or other things come up, and we lose sight of what our plans were; lost until we look back at the end of the next year, only then to see we fell off the track half way through January. Here are a few tips to keep that from happening to you.

1. Start With Clarity - Be completely clear about what you want to achieve this year (and beyond). Vague ideas will only confuse you and you'll let yourself get pulled in a million different directions. Know what you want, clearly define it, and make a plan as to how you'll get there. Only then can you get focused and get to work.
2. Set Realistic Goals - What I'm not saying here is to set the bar low so you won't be disappointed. What I am saying is be realistic on what you can accomplish in a year. Absolutely you can make a ton of progress in a year. But you need to fully evaluate your current situation. What is your knowledge base and does it need to increase in certain areas? What are your available resources? What is your available time? What does your current job or business look like? If you currently work 60 hours a week making $40,000 for the year, you're probably not being realistic in setting a goal to be a millionaire by the end of the year. Your goals should stretch the limits of what you think is possible, but still be in that realm of what is likely, and more importantly what you think can be done. Remember, you're not motivated to work towards something if you don't actually think you'll achieve it. And as you achieve, the definition of what you think is possible will grow and expand as well, leading to bigger goals and possibilities.
3. Give Yourself Realistic Daily and Weekly Tasks - Again, the key is realistic. We all have way too many items on our "to do" list, so simply acknowledge that and know they won't all get done. The key is to prioritize the tasks that are necessary to your job or business (outsource or hire out the easier tasks if at all possible), as well as the highest impact tasks. The rest can wait until later. Log your thoughts and tasks in an organized way so they're not clogging up your brain while you're trying to focus on your current tasks. Don't overbook your schedule or just try to cram them all in on your calendar. Just because they're all on your calendar doesn't mean you'll have the time to get them all done, and you'll be stressed out all the time trying to do so. Be realistic about how long each task will take, and book enough time. If it doesn't fit for today, or for this week, it needs to wait, and you have to be ok with that.
4. Track Your Progress - Again, you're not going to be one of those who looks back in 12 months and wonders what happened. The way to avoid that is to continually be tracking your progress towards your goals. I review my goals every morning before I start my day. As I hit certain milestones or achieve certain tasks, I log it and it's impact on my larger goal. I personally use Goals On Track to track my progress, in addition to a couple apps on my IPhone to track some of my daily or weekly tasks I need to perform.
5. Don't Give Up if You Fall Behind - Let's be honest. We're all super busy, and likely at some point you'll fall behind in at least one aspect of your goals (and you'll know that, because you're tracking and reviewing it on a regular basis, right?). Don't kick yourself and get down that you're not keeping up. Evaluate what could be causing it, adjust, and continue forward. Continually reviewing and adjusting is part of the game.  Don't give up just because you're lagging behind. Also remember, if you're a business owner, likely you have some up and down trends, so lagging behind on an annual revenue goal, for instance, could just mean you need to really focus and produce during an upcoming busy period.

Follow these 5 tips and I promise you will see a difference in your results. You'll be one that's looking back excitedly at the end of 2016 saying "wow, look what I did!" instead of looking back with frustration saying "look what I was supposed to do".