Enhance the Success of Your New Year’s Goals 2: Overview

This continues our series on setting and achieving New Year’s Goals to improve your life

Just changing your New Year’s Resolutions into New Year’s Goals will not enhance success. You need to do more than change the title. I propose a framework to enhance your success. This framework will not just help you with your career goals. It enhances success of any goal you set. I call it the GoalsWork model. The GoalsWork model uses the word Goals to outline 5 steps to reinforce your success.

GoalsWork to Improve Life

People who set goals achieve more in life. Whether they set goals for careers, businesses, recreation, personal or family life, or mental and spiritual peace—goals work!

Walt Disney, the great dreamer and founder of a magical kingdom, said

• “The era we are living in today is a dream coming true.”
• “Somehow I can’t believe there are many heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true.”

GoalsWork Model

The word Goals forms an acronym to help you remember the model:

• Goals: Set goals that challenge you, that cause you to stretch. Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-sensitive).
• Others: Let others help you achieve your goals, especially people who have already achieved that specific goal or one similar.
• Act: Thinking and talking about your goal to others requires action to achieve it Select 2-4 actions you will perform each month and each week to achieve your goal.
• Limitations: Tackle the established, obstructive, or artificial limitations for your goal. Don’t fear failure, but learn from it.
• Synergy: Build a GoalsWork (or mastermind) team. Meet monthly and share what you have done, results, will do, and ideas to overcome limitations.

I’ve taught this model to thousands of people. Many have used it to improve their career, earn more money, increase family unity, find greater satisfaction in life, and more. I hope you take the time to study it, internalize it, and implement it.

Let GoalsWork for You!

Wednesday we review how setting SMART goals solidifies, in your mind, what to do

Enhance the Success of Your New Year’s Goals 2: Overview

This continues our series on setting and achieving New Year’s Goals to improve your life

Just changing your New Year’s Resolutions into New Year’s Goals will not enhance success. You need to do more than change the title. I propose a framework to enhance your success. This framework will not just help you with your career goals. It enhance success of any goal you set. I call it the GoalsWork model. The GoalsWork model uses the word Goals to outline 5 steps to reinforce your success.

GoalsWork to Improve Life

People who set goals achieve more in life. Whether they set goals for careers, businesses, recreation, personal or family life, or mental and spiritual peace—goals work!

Walt Disney, the great dreamer and founder of a magical kingdom, said

• “The era we are living in today is a dream coming true.”
• “Somehow I can’t believe there are many heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true.”

GoalsWork Model

The word Goals forms an acronym to help you remember the model:

• Goals: Set goals that challenge you, that cause you to stretch. Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-sensitive).
• Others: Let others help you achieve your goals, especially people who have already achieved that specific goal or one similar.
• Act: Thinking and talking about your goal to others requires action to achieve it Select 2-4 actions you will perform each month and each week to achieve your goal.
• Limitations: Tackle the established, obstructive, or artificial limitations for your goal. Don’t fear failure, but learn from it.
• Synergy: Build a GoalsWork (or mastermind) team. Meet monthly and share what you have done, results, will do, and ideas to overcome limitations.

I’ve taught this model to thousands of people. Many have used it to improve their career, earn more money, increase family unity, find greater satisfaction in life, and more. I hope you take the time to study it, internalize it, and implement it.

Let GoalsWork for You!

Wednesday we review how setting SMART goals solidifies, in your mind, what to do

Set New Year’s Goals, Not New Year’s Resolutions

Today and Monday we return to one of my favorite topics setting goals to grow

Each year millions of people resolve to change their life in the next twelve months. They resolve to lose weight, stop smoking, reduce debt, and scores of other good ideas. Unfortunately, resolutions seem to fade within a month. Most people cannot remember more than one or two of them by March. That’s why I prefer goals. Eleanor Roosevelt was attributed as saying “Goals are dreams with a deadline.”

Difference Between Goals and Resolutions

Why do we fail to achieve New Year’s Resolutions?  Writers and researchers cite various reasons:

• Making too many resolutions or unrealistic resolutions
• Surrounding yourself with temptation, but not with personal or social support
• Creating resolutions in the midst of emotion, but not planning action to succeed
• Failing to identify the factors that contribute to the behavior you wish to change
• Keeping the resolutions in your head and not writing them down and reading them

I believe the major difference between goals and resolutions involve the depth of our commitment and the action we dedicate to accomplishing the goals. We will discuss how assure success in our next post.

Roles in Which to Set Goals

I like Stephen R. Covey’s framework for looking at your life and setting goals. He provides a simple structure that allows you to identify the areas of your life you wish to improve and what you want to accomplish.

He used the term “Roles and Goals” in describing a method to implement the habit Begin with the End in Mind. 

• Roles:  refer to the our identities like mother, wife, manager, female, and Catholic
• Goals outline what you wish to accomplish for each role like increase my productivity by 10%. You can identify your goals by asking yourself “What is the most important things I can do in this role this year? This month? This week?

Take a few hours in the next few days to identify your roles and set your goals.

Monday we review how the GoalsWork model enhances chance that you achieve your goals

Let Us Praise the Heroic Teachers in All Our Cities

I wanted to applaud public teachers in our country in the aftermath of the tragedy in Newtown

The country responds to innocent lives terminated for unknown reasons by a twenty-year old assassin with no previous concerns or problems. While parents bury children, Congress and politicians debate gun control or freedoms. I would like to focus, instead, on the remarkable and heroic actions of public education teachers.

Teachers Deserve More Respect

Recently, many people have criticized public teachers  and public education. While some teachers may deserve the attacks, most teachers work hard and dedicate their lives to their students, and little pay.

Teachers in Newtown proved heroism when they barricaded doors  to delay the shooter so students could escape, or the principal and another teacher who died lunging to stop him.

One Teacher’s Opinion

My daughter posted the following on Facebook the day after the shooting in Newtown:

"My thoughts, like many others yesterday, were thoughts of sadness. I've been feeling lots of things through this, having lived around that area and knowing loved ones close to where this happened. But as I saw this story, one thought came to mind.... I am grateful to be a public education teacher. To be ranked with so many others, who on a daily basis, put others needs far above their own.

I work with and know many teachers, and know that many of their first thoughts, like mine were...."How would I keep my students safe if this happened?" I am grateful that I can be in a job where you do love those children you teach, and would do anything for them. I know some people would say that not having them in public schools would be the best.

I know that horrible things happen. I can say this for most teachers, our number one priority is ALWAYS our students!! I am grateful for 24 parents, that entrust their children to me everyday. I am grateful for those 24 students in my life. I am grateful to be a public education teacher!!!!!"

Friday we will discuss setting goals—and keeping them—in the new year

Merry Christmas! We Need His Peace More Than Ever

May the peace from the Lord’s atonement comfort and strengthen the families in Newton

I’m writing this the day after innocent children and brave teachers lost their lives in Newton, Connecticut. Ironically, this post will publish on Christmas Eve. I mourn, with the nation, for the lost birthdays, graduations, weddings, and families. I grieve with the spouses, children, and families of the adults. The tragedy hit deeper because my daughter acted as a nanny for a family just 20 miles from Newtown. Their neighbor, a police officer, responded to the call. He said the day started normal and then descended into pandemonium. We need to remember Christ’s promises.

Peach on Earth! Goodwill to Men

We celebrate his birth when angles declared “good tidings of great joy that shall be to all men.” They promised “Peace on earth1 Goodwill toward all men (meaning men and women). He lifted people around him with His love and teachings.

He taught doctrine that was hard to follow then, and still today. He taught us to not only love our neighbor, but to love our enemy, to turn our cheek when smitten, and to forgive those who despitefully use us 7 times 70.

Took Upon Himself Our Pains, Sorrows, Trials & Sins

Isaiah declared that

• “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
• “Surely he hath borne our grief's, and carried our sorrows:
• “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities”
• “With His stripes we are healed”
• “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” 

John, his beloved apostle, quoted the Lamb of God:

• “I will not leave you comfortless”
• “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”

We receive His peace when we accept his gift. The sacrifices at Gethsemane and Calgary give meaning to the birth in Bethlehem. 

Wednesday we discuss how you can use the time between the holidays to grow your career

Unemployment Benefits Expiring Across the Country

This post analyzes statements in the press about unemployment benefits finally expiring

Unemployment benefits, that congress extended 10 times in the past 4 years, have already begun expiring for people around the country. Prior to the recession, unemployment benefits provided income for 26 weeks. At the height of the recession Congress allowed people to receive a check for up to 99 weeks.

Reductions Already Kicking In Throughout the Country

News stories describe unemployment benefits ending in November, December, and January. Here are links to just a few of the stories:

• Iowa
• Rhode Island
• Washington
• California
• New York
• Michigan

Negative Consequences If Benefits Expire

Unemployment benefits both help out-of-work people and hurt them. On the one hand, they help people with no income to survive. As we heard in the election, 23 million people lost their jobs in the last 4 years. They worked to earn the benefit. Their employers paid into the program. The people needed money to live.

Ending the benefits may make things worse. The Huffington Post published

“The looming expiration of extended unemployment insurance will cost the U.S. nearly half a million jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

A Wednesday report from the progressive D.C. think tank finds dropping the benefits would cost 400,000 jobs next year. That's because no benefits means no "multiplier effect" -- an economic boost from unemployed people spending their checks right away on necessities."

Negative Consequences If Benefits Extend

On the other hand, extending benefits allows people to put off looking for a job (even though hundreds of thousands dropped out of the job market last month). Every time the expiration deadline looms close, our office quadruples traffic of people who suddenly need to have a job because their unemployment benefits are going to expire. One article described how thousands of Californians found work almost immediately when they thought their benefits would expire.

Some unemployed people rely on unemployment checks and take a vacation to take care of the family or fix household problems.

Monday we discuss things you can do during the holidays to gain recognition at work

Lower Unemployment: People Stopped Looking

This time I rant about the deceptive unemployment figures last Friday

On Friday, December 7, 2012 the Department of Labor announced that the economy had created 146,000 jobs. They announced that the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7%, the lowest since 2008.

Unemployment Declined for the “Wrong” Reason

In the midst of headlines and hoopla of lower unemployment rates, a phrase appeared in almost every story. Let me share the phrase from several different sources (You can read the entire article by following the link):

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: “The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in November had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey”
• CNN Money: “it fell due mainly to workers dropping out of the labor force.”
• NY Times: “a significant number of workers remain discouraged, prompting them to drop out of the job hunt”
• Reuters: “was due to a decrease in the size of the labor force, a suggestion that frustrated Americans were giving up the hunt for work.”
• Christian Science Monitor: “The decline in unemployment, meanwhile, came because of what many economists call the "wrong" reason – people dropping out of the labor force. ”

Reasons for “Discouraged” and “Withdrawn” Job Seekers

The story behind the story, the unemployment rate did not fall because the economy generated so many jobs. Most were surprised that Super storm Sandy did not slow the job market as much as economists predicted. None of the stories, that I read, about the unemployment rate mentioned the 18,000 people laid off by the closure of Hostess Bakery, or the 14,000 laid off by JP Chase Bank, or the other closures that occurred in November,

People gave up and stopped looking for several reasons. They:

• Believe the want ads and employment boards accurately reflect the job market
• Doubt the president and congress can avoid taking us all off the economic cliff
• Focus on family, household, and other activities instead of hunting for a job
• Fail to impress hiring authorities before they need someone

Friday we will discuss predictions about the upcoming elimination unemployment payments