Happy New Year! Reflecting on Resolutions and Goals

 

Welcome to a New Year! After weeks of celebrating the successes of 2013 with family, friends, and co-workers, now is a great time to evaluate the progress you’ve made in the important areas of your life, and most importantly, set new goals to ensure an upcoming year that is both exciting and productive. One part of JCI USA’s plan is to help get started down that path early.

Take a look at your accomplishments from 2013 and compare them to the goal and resolutions you created a year ago. Did you meet your targets? Were you able to reach the objectives that you set in your personal and professional life? Don’t be too hard on yourself. If you’re like most people, you’re making significant advances if you can achieve even half of what you planned last January.

So what’s the secret to keeping your goals forefront in your mind and on an achievable track? Experts in fields such as psychology and organizational behavior have narrowed successful techniques to a few simple suggestions:

Avoid abstractness – be very clear about what exact steps you will take to achieve your specific result. Try not to set goals with undefined or vague outcomes.

Create measureable goals – part of completing any long-term work project is having an understanding how far you’ve come, and how much is left to be accomplished. The same is true for your personal objectives. Keeping track of your progress by developing milestones will help you stay both positive and organized.

Take advantage of help – whether it’s family members, co-workers, or your local Jaycee chapter, there are individuals and groups with virtually any expertise to assist you in reaching your goals. So don’t be afraid to learn a new professional skill, tackle the home improvement that you’ve never done before, or take the lead in organizing a socially-conscious project, help is available!

Replace bad habits with good ones – this can include anything from waking up late to not eating healthy to spending money unwisely, and a thousand other things we want to change about ourselves. The answer lies in conditioning our minds and bodies to create different rituals and patterns. If you wake up every morning and have a cigarette, change it to a power bar. If you start snacking after work and end up in an unproductive nap before dinner, think about investing in a gym membership. It’s the small changes in lifestyle that produce the most consistent results.

Be realistic about success – remember, things will happen that effect your goals, and they will change. You may find yourself adjusting your outcomes…sometimes positively, and other times negatively. Keep in mind that change is a part of life, and applying that philosophy to your goals will help you eliminate some frustration from your daily routine.

Congratulations on a great 2013! JCI USA President Fay Poissant and her team are ready to provide all of us and all chapters across the nation with the training and resources to DREAM BIG in 2014, making it an even better year for your personal and professional development. Let’s collaborate for an exciting and productive year!

(P.S. Local Presidents, don’t forget to register your 2014 Board of Directors on the JCI website! This is important so that your members can sign up for trainings, earn credit hours, and have full access to all that JCI has to offer! Here’s a link to how to register your team: http://www.jci.cc/media/en/19672/Register+your+2014+Board+of+Directors+in+the+JCI+Online+Directory)