I avoided making any New Year’s resolution this year because life is so atypical over the holidays. I knew I’d come up with goals that didn’t necessarily reflect where I wanted to go. But, now things have settled down a bit and it’s time.

At the ACFW conference last fall in Denver, Debbie Macomber spoke about setting goals, both long term and short term goals, and its importance in reaching achievements. I thought what she said made a lot of sense. You can’t get much done if you don’t set out to do anything. Debbie talked about making 5 and 10 year goals, both career and personal, and then in terms of lifetime goals–those things that you really want to accomplish or that you really feel called to do.

I think tonight before I work on my latest story I’m going to do what Debbie suggested and write down:

5 things I want to get done this week

5 things I want to get done this year

5 things I want to accomplish in the next 5-10 years

and 5 things I want to accomplish at some point in my life…

And I’m going to be specific. I’m not going to write that I want to be more organized. I’m going to set a goal that says I will do “this certain thing” in order to be organized. For example, I’m going to run more, but instead of writing “run more” I’m going to write that I want be able to run a 5k by this spring. I think being specific will not only help me know clearly whether or not I’ve met the goal but it will also make it easier to stay on track in achieving it.