From: Marilyn Strong 

As the days grow shorter and we have more time in the evenings to think and be, intuitively we know it's time to set our goals.

What have you done this October to think about the goals for your business, your money and your life for the next year?

What time are you giving yourself in November to write down the ideas as you think of them?

So many people rely on sales at Christmas and are frantic with preparations for sales and home that they forget to think about next year. Until next year is already here.

Dust off your goal notes from last year and review them. No notes? Don't worry, make a chart with 10 columns, one for each month so far this year and write down a significant accomplishment for each month. Now write how it made you feel to accomplish that goal. Remember the exhilaration? Remember the world that all-of-a-sudden opened up?

Next month when I move into my new home, I'm going to sit in my soaker tub with a pen and my notes and review what I said I would accomplish and see what I actually did do.

And then I'm going to start recording my 98 goals. I can do this two ways: picture myself sitting in the tub in November 1998 and looking back on what I accomplished or, project ahead predict what I will accomplish.

I've already found my Goal book (a spiral bound notebook). It was one of the few things I took to the apartment while our home was being built, however I'm not quite ready to open it. But I'm already getting adrenaline rushes thinking of what I can predict will happen in 1998 and then accomplishing it.

How will you set your goals for 1998? How will you balance your life so you can set the goals BEFORE 1998 is upon us?

I'm interested in your processes for this important part of our lives.

Marilyn Strong
The Strong Communication Group Inc.

From: Denise O'Berry

Marilyn --

Thank you for beginning this thread! It's definitely high time to start thinking about goals for '98.

A couple of methods I use with both my clients and myself are below.

1. Close your eyes. Picture your business running perfectly. See the interactions and the surrounding environment. Open your eyes. Write down everything you saw in your perfect business environment. Don't analyze the statements, write them as fast as they come to mind. When you're out of ideas, take a look at your list. Prioritize it. Take the top three "perfect environment" statements and turn them into your goals for next year.

2. Take a large sheet of paper and many different colored pens, crayons, etc. Draw your business today as a water going vessel. Don't forget to include the surrounding environment. Once finished, take another large sheet of paper and draw your perfect business as a water going vessel. Again, don't forget to include the surrounding environment. Compare the pictures. Develop goal statements that can get you from picture #1 to picture #2. Select the top three to work on for 1998.

These methods have been very useful for me and my clients in the past. I highly recommend that you never work on more than three goals at a time. It causes loss of focus, confusion and frustration. If you have more than three goals, good for you! Just make sure that three of them are short term, 6 months or less and the others are long term.

Good Luck!

Denise O'Berry
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From: Judith K. Thompson, MBA, Phd

Another addition to the goal-setting discussion, started by Marilyn and continued by Denise:

10 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR GOALS WORK FOR YOU!

1. Write Them Down

As simple as this may seem, it makes the difference between goals that work and goals that you never attain. After you write down your goals, write down the steps that are necessary to achieve them.

2. Make Them A Stretch

To work for you, your goals must be chosen honestly and always be true to your inner self. But you also have to push beyond your previous limits to get to new heights. Your goals should be specific, clearly defined, measurable, and attainable within the stated time period.

3. Distinguish Between Long Term And Short Term Goals

There is a big difference between long term and short term goals, but they need to be related. The short term goals are the building blocks for your long term vision. Creating long term goals enables you to consciously focus your creativity in the specific direction that you would like to move.

4. Focus On The What, Not The How

Keep you eyes on the target at all times! Recognize that every event in your life is a direct result of the choices you make, and that life does not just happen to you. Are your daily choices both an expression of your governing values and a concrete part of your path to creating the life you envision?

5. Be Flexible About The How

If you insist on knowing how it is going to happen, success can smack you right in the face and you won't even know it! You'll be too busy waiting for it to happen the "right" way.

6. Visualize Yourself In Your Future

Before you begin to write your goals, place yourself in your future as if you are already there and make it real. Write down the date by which the goal will be accomplished, then stop, close your eyes, and imagine that you are there. See yourself as clearly as you can=97-what you are wearing, where you are, what you are doing. How does it feel to have accomplished that goal?

7. Write Your Vision Of Your Ideal Life

This is your grandest vision of your life and your world as you would live it at your highest purpose and potential. The vision that you hold of yourself and the world is without limitations, fulfilling your most cherished dreams.

8. Stop Beating Yourself Up

So many people create enormous barriers when they think about goal setting=97-turning them into yet another opportunity for fear of failure or blocking themselves from what they truly desire. A "failure" is only a failure when you learn nothing from it. Learn an important distinction: you may fail, but that doesn't mean that you are a failure.

9. Let Your Goals Be Organic

Goals are constantly changing and evolving because life is constant change. Your goals are always available to be reviewed and refined. You can always change them=BEthey are not immutable and changing your goals is not a failure, but an acknowledgment of the flow of life.

10. Have Fun!

If goal setting and achieving your goals isn't fun, then why bother? Let your imagination and creativity carry you away to your greatest and wildest dreams, don't limit your possibilities. Play with your goals, try being outrageous, notice how that feels. Make goal setting a fun and joyous activity!

Judith K. Thompson, MBA, Phd
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