Most people set their New Year resolutions for the new year at this time. We know from history that many people don’t stick to those resolutions, often failing to get in better shape, eat better, or other similar personal changes. I think the average person has bailed on their efforts by Feb 1.
I think some of this is precisely because they’re not goals that are specifically written down and committed to. It’s easy to say you want to make some grand change, but the reality is that you need to focus on one small goal at a time and make a concentrated effort to achieve it.’
Many of the Microsoft MVPs and active, successful community people I know create goals. They list a series of things that they want to accomplish in the new year. Some of them are big goals (publish once a month), and some are small (take a test, attend an event), but they are a list of measurable goals for the new year.
And most of them then look back at the previous year as they’re getting ready. I did my goals for 2009, a series of updates through out the year, and then a final look back. I had written a way to measure my success (or failure), which is something I’d recommend as well. I did all of this before writing goals for 2010, using my thoughts on 2009 to look forward to 2010.
Here’s what I’d suggest, since it’s not too late:
- Think of some goals for 2010 that you want to accomplish. They can be big or small
- Write them down, along with a way to decide if you’ve succeeded or failed.
- Set a quarterly reminder to revisit your goals and see how you are doing.
- Analyze how you did between Christmas and New Years next year.
- Repeat.
Voice of the DBA 
Hi Steve,This is a good set of recommendations for most people. However, it does not go far enough to ensure that these are truly goals that you want to accomplish during the year. I'd probably add a new step 3 – To re-visit what you wrote down and to confirm that those are indeed your goals for the year, and to add more detail to each indicating how you will accomplish each goal. We often leave our goals as general statements without getting down to the "how" of things. And further, if any of these are shared goals with your partner, then there is also the question of "who" will do what.As you can see, these things are not easy. But neither is the accomplishment of any worthwhile goal. And therein lies the reason for many erstwhile goals to never see the light of accomplishment.Thanks for your post -Murli Koushik
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