Agggg! I Hate New Year's Resolutions!

It's 10:15 am on New Year’s Day and I am reading all the resolutions my friends have written on their Facebook pages. Good for them but not me, I never made or followed resolutions.  It never made sense to me that I had to declare that I was going to change or do something differently because it happened to be the first day of the first month of a new year.  It just set me up for disappointment if I broke my promise.  Who needs that?  Instead, I make objectives throughout the year and then a couple of goals to keep me on the straight and narrow to get there. For example one February my objective was to clean out the coat closet by month end. That was an easy objective and not one that was going to disappoint me if I didn't get it done. I then set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) goals to help me accomplish the tasks. They went something like this:

1.  Sort coats, mittens and hats by size by Friday (date).
2.  Organize coats, mittens and hats by (date) to donate or toss. 
3.  Donate usable coats, mittens or hats to church by (date). Toss remaining items into receptacle in the Pep Boys parking lot on the same day.
4. Admire spacious closet daily. 

You can do this with your job search too. In my book, Job Search for Moms I talk about breaking your job search goals into SMART manageable steps because you don't want to overwhelm yourself or set yourself up for disappointment.  Your job search goals are so much more important than cleaning out your coat closet but the premise is the same.  I'll share those tips with you tomorrow (shoot; now I have to make another goal). 

Happy New Year! We'll get there, step by step.