NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

The New Year is nearly upon us and now is a great time to start working on those New Year's resolutions. It's traditionally a time for looking back at the old year - at what went well and what not so well - and also a time to look ahead to the future.

So as you think about how your life will be better next year - what should you bear in mind?

Make sure your goals are:

• What you want to achieve - not what you think you should be doing.
• Really attractive - what Anthony Robbins would call "juicy goals".
• Realistic. They need to stretch you and push you out of your comfort zone but shouldn't be completely unattainable.
• Specific - the better you define what you want to achieve, the more likely you are to do so.
• Timed - when do you want to do this by? Can you break it down into smaller chunks?
• In many different areas of your life. Don't just think about losing weight or getting a new job - remember your relationships, friendships, hobbies, personal development and spiritual areas too.

Be sure to write your goals down. This seems to work on a number of levels. The act of writing means you have to have really given them some thought. Putting them on paper also seems to help the unconscious mind work on them at times when your conscious mind is busy with other things.

A study of graduates from Yale University in the 7o's looked at who had written down their financial goals - only 3% of graduates had done so. Remarkably, when followed up 10 years later, this 3% were worth more, in financial terms, than the other 97% put together!

Don't under-estimate the power of writing down your goals.

If you haven't yet written down your goals for 2009 - when now is a good time to do so?