It’s always fun this time of year to reflect on what has happened in the past and to think about what to accomplish looking forward.  Some people call the forward-looking exercise resolutions or goals, and pin their hopes on the “magic” surrounding the date of January 1.  Why wait until then to start something new?  As far as I’m concerned, right now is a good time to start. You get a head-start on those waiting until January 1, plus, you could be a third of the way through making your new resolutions or goals a habit.  As the saying goes, it takes 3 weeks of sustained, repeatable activity for something to become a habit, right?  So start now and by January 1 you’ve already got 8 days in.  And what’s even better?  These next 8 days will be a challenge as we’re knee deep in the holiday season so if you can keep it up during that time, the 16 days after that will be a piece of cake.

So besides the usual goal of wanting to drop a few pounds, I’ve decided to take a different approach to what I want to accomplish in 2010.  I’m focusing more on those things that are not only good and healthy for me, but will have an impact on those who are important to me.  So things like being in the moment with my children, not just counting the minutes until nap time or bed time so I can move onto some other chore or task that has to be accomplished.   Making more time for myself and the things I enjoy like reading and blogging.  Of course exercising as a way to decrease the stress that I feel every day.  And being more assertive about what I can and cannot commit to both personally and professionally.

Setting out toward accomplishing those things is an entirely different story. I read an interesting blog post from Chris Brogan last week about how he goes about setting and visually tracking his goals.  Depending on what you want to accomplish you can set up some type of tracking mechansim by day, week or month but no matter how you slice it, it’s a great way to track your progress and reward yourself for the small accomplishments along the way.  And what better motivation when working toward a goal than seeing how far you’ve already come.