Whenever December rolls around, I always reflect on how the past year went, and I start thinking about what I want to achieve in the upcoming year.
This past year I’ll admit that I didn’t have a clear vision of all of my goals and what I wanted to achieve.
This was a huge error, because I know the importance of setting goals and how powerful they can be to drive you to achieve them, but this only happens if they’re very clear in your mind.
I did have a few business and career goals, and because I had them in mind, I achieved them, which was great.
But a lot of things that are important to me, like my relationships with my girlfriend, family, and friends, my education, and my ideal day-to-day lifestyle I didn’t think about so much.
It’s not that these things all blew up, but I kind of just went with the flow and took whatever came my way, instead of working to create exactly what I want.
Like I would just read whatever books caught my interest at the time as opposed to having a plan of what I wanted to specifically learn.
And that’s why I’m writing this – because I want to put out some of my goals for 2010 to keep me accountable, and to maybe stimulate some thinking along the same lines for you.
First, for those of you who have never learned much about goal setting, let me share with you the absolutely most effective way to set your goals and set yourself up for success:
By far the most important thing is to write down your goals, review them daily, and BELIEVE that you will achieve them.
Don’t worry too much about the way you word it, for now, just think about what it is you want to achieve, write it down, then review it on a daily basis and BELIEVE it’s yours.
It’s best if you can also visualize the goal, so say you want to enter your first MMA fight, see yourself walking into the cage, staring down your opponent, then winning the fight!
Doing this is by far the most important thing to do.
After you have this down, then think about when you want to achieve them.
Now of course you’ve got to be realistic, but most people underestimate their potential. If it’s absolutely unrealistic, like being the UFC champ if you’ve never had a fight before, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.
So here’s a sample of what I’m going to work for and achieve in 2010:
HEALTH
- Sleep – I’m aiming to sleep 8 hours a night and be in bed before midnight 5 days a week. Sleep is so vital to everything that I can’t neglect it anymore. I’m being honest with myself because I know I won’t be getting in bed at 10:30pm, especially since I’m training people until 9pm most weeknights, but I know I can manage 5 days a week being in bed before midnight.
RECREATION & FUN
- Enter at least 2 amateur boxing fights/tournaments and WIN them and at least 1 No-Gi Submission Wrestling tournament… I’m taking this step-by-step, maybe in 2011 it’ll be a cage fight… 🙂
- Play a recreational team sport with my girlfriend once a week.
- Spend 1 full week at my parent’s cottage in Parry Sound, Ontario in July/Aug.
- Do a canoe/camping trip for a weekend in Algonquin Park in the summer… I’ve never done a canoe/camping trip where you paddle around to different camping spots, plus it’s gorgeous there, it looks like this:
RELATIONSHIPS
- Visit my brother in China – he’s been there for 4 years or something now and I still haven’t gotten out to see him – I’m aiming for Sept/Oct to get out there.
- Teach my parents how to blog! This one will be funny and I’ll definitely let you know when it launches… it’s coming soon!
- Plan more dates with my g/f (2-3 per month)! For all you guys out there – once you get comfortable with your lady, you might just fall into the trap of, "Hey, it’s Friday, what do you wanna do?" DON’T DO THIS!! Girls like to look forward to things and like to be planned for, so give it a go and I bet you’ll both be a lot happier… An old personal training client always used to tell me, "Happy wife, happy life!"
EDUCATION
- Study the 3 new Russian/Eastern European strength training textbooks that I’ve had sitting around and never gotten to, knocking off at least 1 a month starting in January.
- Attend 1 high level 3-5 day intensive training program – I’ve got my eye on a couple different ones, just gotta see which one will be the best (these are like $2K to attend so I’ve gotta take my time and really make sure they’re good).
- Attend at least 3 other smaller training seminars, conferences, lectures, or workshops spread throughout the year.
So these are just some of the goals on my list… Hopefully they’ve stimulated some thought about what you want to happen in 2010…
Let me know if I’m missing anything, but most importantly, post a comment with your TOP 1-3 GOALS below, so you have some level of accountability and drastically improve your chances of achieving them.
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