The 2009 New Year’s Resolution Goal System

Posted by Amir Lehrer on December 31, 2008

Everyone loves to make New Year’s resolutions. It’s a new year and time for a fresh star so we load ourselves up with all sorts of goals or resolutions. Lose weight, exercise, quit smoking, get a raise, start a business, start a blog, read more, and the list can go on and on.

I find that there are so many things that I want to accomplish or start doing and my list is a mile long. If you have too many things to think and worry about or to try and change, you will not accomplish any of them. That is why I am introducing and following my new goal accomplishing system for 2009 and encouraging you to do the same.

The 2009 New Year’s Resolution Goal System

The system is very easy and makes you wonder why you never tried something like it before. Here are the steps for the 2009 New Year’s resolution goal system:

Make a list of all of your goals.

1. Make a list of all of your goals for this year from major feats that you would like to accomplish all the way down to little changes you would like to make (like reading for 30 minutes instead of watching one of the TV shows in your routine). Try to come up with at least 12, one for each month.

Organize your goals.

2. Organizer all your goals in order of importance. The most important at the top and the least important (or the “it would be nice if I did it”) goal at the bottom.

Start working on your first goal.

3. On January 1, start working on your number one, most important goal. Work hard at it as if it is the only goal you need to accomplish this year. Each day in January do something that will bring you closer to your goal.

Evaluate your progress.

4. At the end of the month, evaluate how well you’ve done. Did you accomplish your goal? Did you get close? If not, what can you do to help yourself achieve your goal over the next 30 days? If successful, skip to number 6.

Evaluate your goal.

5. If you didn’t succeed, try and figure out why you didn’t. Was it too hard and should take longer than 30 days? If so, keep working on it for as long as it takes. Just make sure you evaluate your progress at least once a month and don’t give up.

Sometime you may find that the goal isn’t even right for you and that there are more important goals to focus on. If that’s the case, over the next 30 days, try the next goal on your list. It’s ok to decide that one or two of your goals were not right but if you find this happening with too many goals, try and figure out why and how you can make better goals that you can achieve.

Move on to your next goal.

6. Once you’ve accomplished one goal (or are comfortable enough with your progress), move onto your next goal. Work for the next 30 days to accomplish your next goal while maintaining your progress of your first goal (unless there is nothing to maintain since the goal was a one time thing).

Evaluate once again.

7. Go back to step 4 and repeat the steps over and over each month.

Keep doing this until next New Year and see how many goals you can accomplish. Next year try adding more goals and shorten the trial period. You can always assign different amounts of time to goals of different difficulty. Challenge yourself each year to see how many goals you can accomplish.

Over time, you will get better at disciplining yourself and maintaining your progress. Last year, without even noticing, I started using this system. If you look back to my first blog post, I wrote about starting my New Year’s resolution of blogging about “luck” on December 4^th. On December 31^st, I wrote about starting my next goal of creating personal financial statements every month, which I have also accomplished. Throughout this past year, I have started and accomplished many personal goals such as moving to a bigger place to live in a new city, quitting my job and starting my own company, spending more quality time with my family and many more. Looking back, it took about a month or so for each of them.

You will never accomplish all of your goals overnight but if you take baby steps and do them one at a time, you can be successful. Just remember, it takes 6 years to become an overnight success, so start working toward 2015.

Good Luck and Happy New Year!

READ: Welcome to Luckortunity! If you liked this article, you may like some of my past posts. I suggest reading 40 Ways to Increase Your Luck next to give you a better introduction. You can subscribe to my RSS feed and get lucky all the time. Thanks for visiting!

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New Years Resolution 2008, Lose Weight or Get Lucky

Posted by Amir Lehrer on December 4, 2007

Picture this. You are 20 pounds overweight on December 20^th, New Years is right around the corner. This is the perfect time to make a new years resolution. You are more than determined to get to your goal weight and you decide to start the moment that the ball drops in Time Square. You plan for the next 11 days how you plan to lose the weight. NO more eating after 8:00 PM, cut out 10% of your calories, drink less soda and alcohol and more water and finally start exercising like you’ve been wanting to for as long as you can remember.

Since you are extremely determined and organized, you whip out your laptop or a notebook and start making charts of what you need to do, how you are going to track yourself and set clear goals. You feel great about yourself and completely prepared for January 1^st when your new lifestyle will start. You are going to be great!

Well, you still have a week and a half to go until you have to change your lifestyle so you might as well enjoy yourself while you can, after all, you won’t be able to indulge yourself for a long time.

A few large meals later, maybe some late night drinking, snacks in bed while watching a movie and holiday dinners, you look at the scale and are somewhat disappointed that you now have an extra 5 pounds to lose. You’re not as optimistic about your new years resolution at this point but you are still determined.

New Years Eve comes and you find yourself at a party with food and drinks going late into the night. You may choose to partake thinking that “the diet starts tomorrow” or you may hold back which can be the ultimate temptation. Whatever the case, the next morning is going to be very hard and keeping to your new program will get harder each day. The percentage of people that come to this point and stick to the program are (from my experiences) very low.

LUCKORTUNITY

The Luckortunity over here is to always start things right away. Never push things off because they will get harder and harder as time goes on. The greatest chance you have at succeeding is moving ahead at full force when the idea hits your head. A new idea, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, can give you a high that will give you the extra push to get things done. If you start on that note, you have a better chance of building momentum to keep going toward your goal.

My new year’s resolution for 2008 is to get lucky. Lucky in general, in everything I do in life, from business to social to family and everything in between. This post is the beginning of me keeping to my new year’s resolution. I know that it’s not January 1^st yet but I figure a few things; first, if I start now, it will get me in motion so that by New Years I will already be well on my way and have enough inertia to keep going. Second, if I start now, it will be pretty pathetic of me to not even make it to New Years for my New Year’s resolution so I will be forced to keep it up. Lastly, starting early, working hard and being persistent are some of the keys to getting lucky.

I wrote on the Luckortunity (or introduction) page that there is a major difference between “chance” and “luck”. “Chance” is winning the lottery, something people can hope for but “luck” is something people can strive for. I am convinced that every single person in the world has the potential to be lucky on a regular basis. Through this blog, I am going to go through my own personal luck and give you tips on becoming lucky yourself.

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