First off, let me say that my plans to post each and every day have thus far fallen by the wayside. But Im really okay with that. Im not the kind of blogger that has something to say each and every day, unless I make up some kind of drivel just for the sake of posting.

And thats not a quality post.

Out With The Old, In With The New
So what does one do to get the year started right? One makes Resolutions, right? Yeah? You know, those little promises we all like to break by the end of January?

Right. Those things.

Nah. Throw out the Resolutions. No, waitResolve to never make another Resolution again. Instead, do a little process with yourself, or your family unit, each year. We typically do this on New Years Day. I started ours on NYD but we are completing ours this weekend, for two reasons: first, because I went to this incredible seminar last weekend and learned so much about myself and how I want to proceed I wanted to make sure and include all of that into our process, and, second, because this weekend is a long oneit will give us the time to incorporate everything.

My situation is not the norm. I broke an arrow with my throat, people! Cmon! Ill include a pic of said arrow at the bottom of this post.

But I digress.

Make A List (What, Again?!?)
So, um. Yeah. Yes. Depending on how well you did on your list from the last time and whether you feel you can still use it, just yank that puppy out and use it again. You can add to it or start fresh.

Youll get really good at this, I promise. Its simple brainstorming. Think of it as automatic writing to get in touch with your Higher Self.

Find Your Purpose
The reason you are doing this exercise again is to find your purpose. What are you trying to do?

When I do this exercise each year with my family, I do it in the context of my family, but you can do it in any context that makes sense to you: your business, your career, your body/health/weight loss, etc. Its whatever you want to be focusing your attention on for the next period of time.

Make A Goal
With that in mind, set a specific goal for yourself with a specific deadline. It needs to be really specific and actionable. By actionable, I mean one that you can act upon. I know that sounds obvious, but youd be surprised as you do the exercise how your mind will want to trick you into creating a goal that is vague, not specific and not actionable.

Heres an example: Betty loves to bake. She does the list exercise and finds her purpose is to really go full hog and be a professional baker. Shes excited. She sits down to make her goal and comes up with Become a better cook, or Learn to decorate cakes.

You can see the first one is totally off the mark. The second one is better but its not totally actionable, is it?
I hear you saying, Whats wrong with that one? Okay, she could actually use that one and move forward. I was just trying to see if you were paying attention.

Make A Plan
Now that you and Betty have your goal in hand you are all set to make a plan as to how you are going to achieve that plan. In Bettys case, she might want to sign up for a class of some kind or even take an entire series of courses to learn professional cake decorating.

An important part of this step is to define the whenyou want to be clear as to when it will be completed. Some people have this as the goal step. I like to have it as a separate step. Just a matter of preference. Goals and Plans, for me, are interdependent to each other. This kind of fluidity of thought has been very helpful to me over the years. Your plans can change and you can still reach your goal, you see?

Define The Steps
Then its time for the best part: breaking it all down. Once youve given it this much thought, youve probably already understood a lot of what it will take to get to this part, but you might find you have some gaps. Maybe you know how to begin and how to end, but need to fill-in some of the middle steps. Thats okay. You can do some research, make some calls. Dont expect that this can be completely finished in just a single sitting, although thats great if you can!

You can also make an educated guess as to what you think the steps are and adjust as more information becomes available to you going forward. Thats the beautiful thing about making these kinds of plans! Its just a guide to get you where you want to go. Its your tool.

Create A Project
Much of the time there will be a subset of steps that will form an entire project on their own, such as going to school or creating a new venture, as part of your goal. Treat this as a new goal under your initial one in the same manner above.

Set Touch Points (You Know, That Review Thing)
Youll want to have a regular routine to go over where you are on your progress. How frequently you do this will depend on how you set up your goal. Maybe it should be daily, or weekly. In the case of my family it has traditionally been yearly, but with all of the changes Im incorporating Ill be switching to a daily/weeklysystem.

Ready, Set, GO!
And all you need to do now is put your foot on the gas.

Have you done this kind of process? How frequently do you do it? Do you do it for yourself or with your family? Do you use it in your business? Do you find it useful?

Let me know in the comments below.

Click here to check out the original post. The arrow pic is at the bottom.