Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to 2014!
Today is the day when everyone is given a clean slate. Facing us are 364 (and change) days of opportunity before the ball drops and another new year begins anew. Today is the day when resolutions are made. Goals for the year are set in our social lives and in our businesses. Now normally, we’d be hopping on the resolution bandwagon. Vowing to eat more broccoli and sleep more and read more for pleasure.
But not this year.
Why not, you ask? Well, it’s not because we don’t have high hopes for Wise Ink in 2014.
It’s because we recently read this article by James Clear. In it, Mr. Clear completely turns the idea of goals—and also resolutions—on its head. James is a entrepreneur who is making a business out of his passions, travel photography and weightlifting. Sound familiar? He is purpose-driven, just like you, and he’s going to rock 2014, but he’s not going to do it because he set goals.
You see, goals set an end date on your work (whatever that work may be). Do you have a goal to get 1,000 Twitter followers? Great. What happens when you reach it? How is your day-to-day life on social media going to change after you get there? Well, James thinks it shouldn’t. Instead of goals, you should focus on your system.
Your system is the process by which you achieve your goal. It breaks whatever you want to do up into little, manageable parts. It helps you get to a goal, sure enough, but if you focus not on the end goal, but on your achievements every day, it creates a good habit for you that will be better in the long run for you and your book.
If you focus on engaging on Twitter in a way that gains your followers, you won’t rest on your laurels when you reach your old goal; you’ll be behaving in positive ways that will keep your business growing. Instead of being ok with 1,000 followers, you’ll jump to 2,000, and then 5,000, and then 10,000. Same with writing. And revisions. And marketing.
And that is what being an authorpreneur is all about.
That is SO cool because I came to the very same conclusion! I came up with a list of 12 words instead of goals. I wrote in my journal, “A goal feels like it has an ending, i.e. something one sets out to complete or achieve. A list of words feels like an intention; desiring and willing for a shift in habits and behaviors.”
My first word?
Order.
Happy 2014!
What a superb word to begin the year on. Thanks for the comment Kim!