With the new year upon us, many people have taken the time to come up with goals or resolutions. We have all been told to write them down and keep them in a place where we can find them. If you have done this, you have taken the first step for success.
But here is the rub, if you can’t see them on a regular basis you’ll soon forget them. The key is to put your written goals in a visible place where you will see them during your day. I have two ways that you can do this.
1. Written Goal Cards: The first is to download our Goal Setting Toolkit and print out the template on business card stock. You take the resulting cards and write down your goals. Once you have them on the cards, you can place the cards in easy view at your desk, in the car and anywhere you’ll see them during your day (on the refrigerator door works well for diet goals :-)).
Here is an example card for long term goals…
Here is a daily card that you can carry with you…
As you can see, their handy size will let you put them almost anywhere.
2. Goal Word Cards: While specific goal cards are great, you may not want the whole world knowing that you are hankering for the CEO position in 10 years. Chris Brogan, the social media guy, has a great solution. He usually sets three primary goals each year, and gives each goal a one word title. The word instantly brings up the goal in his mind, but the word only means something to him. His words for 2010 are ecosystems, owners, and kings.
I personally like this system as a word is much easier to remember than a detailed goal statement. This is where our motivator cards come in. The default template has motivational words on it that you can print out and keep in sight. All you need to do is take your goal words for the year and replace the words on these cards in MS Word.
Here is the cool part, you can take your three words and make a goal tower right at your desktop, with a clothespin, two micro clips and a pencil. All items that you probably have handy.
Once you have this setup you’ll see your words all day. Your co-workers may ask about them and you have the choice of telling them the whole story.. or not.
And there is one last caveat, the motivator cards have a remember me card that will remind you to bring home the milk. This is one goal that will get you brownie points in a hurry!!
