I don’t do resolutions anymore. After years of failing to stick to the same ones (Exercise! Eat healthier! Save money! Travel!) I haven’t given up per se, but let’s just say I’ve moved on.

However, this post from Chris Guillebeau prompted me to start looking seriously at setting–and planning to achieve–some goals. The first step is looking back at what happened this year–2009 was weird for a lot of people. I started Style Sample magazine, my childhood pet died, I hit the dirty thirty and realized I ain’t gettin’ any younger–all of which has prompted me to get serious and focus.

Setting goals and developing detailed action plans is the fun part (well, it is for me because I’m kind of a nerd that way). The hard part is actually doing everything and sticking to the plan, which is difficult because I’m not exactly what you would call disciplined. I’m willing to work my butt off, but only if it’s something I enjoy–apparently this makes me kind of a flake. I prefer to think of myself as an ambitious slacker, if you will.

Still, I decided I have to do something. So:

Creating the plan

To start, I created a Google Docs document with three sections. One for 2009 review, one for 2010 goals, and one for infinity and beyond, which basically includes wish-list items I’d like to do someday and will be ready to do if the opportunity arises in the next year.

In the 2009 review, I listed all the major life events of the past year. Honestly, this took up less than three lines–my life is not that exciting and I prefer not to dwell on the past. From that list, I picked items I want to stick with–namely blogging, the magazine, and making a name for myself in the marketing & social media space.

Then, I created headers for each item, and started listing goals. SMART goals, with quantities and dates and such.

Under each header, I worked backwards (beginning with the end in mind) to determine the real live physical actions needed to achieve each goal.

Shoe sacrifice*

The part I was missing before was sacrifice–I wanted to do more and get more but not give anything up. You can’t get something for nothing though, so unless my sugar daddy/winning lottery ticket/miracle financial windfall comes through, it’s on me.

Sacrifice for me means working on page layouts instead of taking a nap, learning new software instead of cruising Net-a-Porter for stuff I can’t afford (though I still need to do research–you know, for the blog), substituting what I already have for things I think I “need”, and limiting myself to three cookies at a time instead of the usual eight. What? I have to start somewhere!

Do you have any goals for next year? How do you plan?

*No shoes were harmed during the writing of this post.

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