New Year, New You....what's your plans for 2009?

It's that time of year where we turn a new page and set out what we want to achieve for the year.

Firstly, what objectives did you set out to achieve last year?
Did you complete them?
If not why not?
Too ambitious? Too difficult or too vague?

By learning the lessons from the past we can then look to set the new objectives as it's not really worth starting with new objectives if you didn't complete your old ones. However, if the old objectives are proving difficult to achieve, it may be worth re-writing them and refreshing them.

Let's look at how we can refresh or set new:

Most people are familiar with the term SMART objectives. Which means that objectives should be :
Specific - What are you going to achieve?
Measureable - How will you know when the objective has been achieved.
Achievable - Can the objective be achieved - is it dependent on other tasks being completed first?
Releavant - Does it matter?!!!
Time bound - When will the objective be complete?

However, I prefer SMARTER Objectives. The E being for Exciting and the R for Rewarding.

What's going to be different if you do the objective? If it's not exciting and not rewarding then is it really worth doing?

Happy New Year!!!