So, are you ready to make 2008 a spectacular year? Below are some questions and exercises I encourage you to take on to prepare for your best year yet including setting your goals, doing a year end review and setting yourself up for extreme success!

Here’s your challenge. Think about the goals you want to achieve next year. Are you ready to play BIG? Want to raise that high bar another foot? What’s at stake for you if you achieve these goals this year?

Here are several questions to explore. Remember, every day is a new opportunity to redesign your life and live way want to live!

***********TIME TO SET YOUR 2008 GOALS!***********
NOTE: If you need me to send you the Attain Now Goal Setting Program to help you not only set your goals but develop the strategy to achieve them, let me know.

1. What would be unreasonable, yet extraordinary for you to achieve this year? (Dream BIG!) Create your goals in the following areas: (Don’t feel you ‘need’ to have one in each category. Just the ones that are important to you; the ones you really, really, really want!)

a) For yourself (personal goals, finances, relationships, well being, etc.)
b) For others (family, friends, clients)
c) In your career/business (skills, competencies, performance/productivity milestones, etc.)

2. What are you willing to do beyond what you’re currently doing to achieve that?

3. What are you willing to give up in order to achieve that? (Old beliefs, ineffective actions, ways of being, diversionary tactics, etc.)

4. Who do you need to be to achieve this?

+++++++++++YEAR END REVIEW++++++++++++++++++

Have you taken the time yet to acknowledge your successes this year? Otherwise, when is the big payoff? Here are some quick exercises to take on so you can pat yourself on the back for your achievements. You really did GREAT things this past year!!

1. What did you create/achieve/complete this year? HINT: When answering the questions a-c, look at your finances, business, relationships, health, well being, career, happiness, environment, upgraded beliefs/peace of mind, hobby, skills, performance, etc.

a) List what you are happy about achieving/creating and why it’s important/what it means to you.
b) List what you’d like to change or what didn’t turn out as expected.
c) List what you’ve left incomplete and want completion on.

Once you’ve listed your responses to #1, evaluate each response by asking the following question:

A. What lessons have you learned from this experience or by creating/completing this?

Here are some examples:

I’VE ACHIEVED:
* I strengthened my relationship with my children/family/friends/spouse/significant other.
* I began saving at least 10% of my income.
* I’ve doubled my sales volume.
* I set stronger boundaries for myself and now have more time for me.
* I approach my career in a way that serves me best.
* I’ve created my perfect client base, company procedures, etc.
* I’ve become stress free!
* I can now best manage my time using a weekly routine that keeps me highly productive while maintaining balance in my life.
* I’ve developed systems that help me achieve my goals (management, selling, marketing, business, etc.)

I’VE LEARNED:
* Being lighter about oneself opens up the possibility to have more fun.
* How powerful the freedom of choice can be.
* Setting specific goals, developing a vision and a strategy actually made me much more successful in less time!
* How important the people in my life are to me.
* To live more in the present.
* Taking care of myself allows me to take care of others with less effort or sacrifice.
* There’s no such thing as mistakes, just unexpected results that create opportunities for growth and learning.
* I’m fully accountable for the opportunities I create and each day is perfect (even when its not!)
* Trying to control things has its high costs and letting go/being flexible brings in new possibilities.

I WANT COMPLETION ON:
* Several tolerations that I’m putting up with that cause stress and need to be eliminated.
* The relationship I had with my partner/boss/friend/family member, etc.
* The projects that I’ve started around the house.
* The (selling, marketing, contact management, prospecting, leadership, professional development, communication, self care, life balance, customer support, staff development, etc.) system I started to create.

+++++NEW YEAR THEME AND VISION++++++++++++++++

2. Create Your Theme For The New Year: This is the year of …? Fill in the blank. (Strong relationships, well being, peace, happiness, great health, an abundance of fun, stress free living, reserves, overdelivering, etc.) Your theme complements your vision and enables you to prioritize what you want this New Year to look like. What’s the one thing you want to stand out most when you look back at the end of the year? Keep it short, maybe one or two sentences, tops.

3. Get your routine in order. (I.E. my book, Time Management for Sales Professionals)
4. Revisit your vision statement as well as your goals and place them as a recurring reminder in your CRM software so they are top of mind rather than collect dust. 🙂

Wishing you extreme success!
Keith