With the New Year come new goals. In my last post, I recapped 2010 and, to say the least, I was thrown for a loop. I am trying to figure out what that big windfall means for my life, my business, and my identity. The fact is that my personality has two halves when it comes to my business. One half is a creative person that loves to write and just wants to focus on the creative side of the business. The other half is a hardcore business person that needs to have a plan and wants to know how everything is going to work out. I am happy to have both sides because I feel that it is necessary to be both creative and business-minded. I do not want to be one of those people who throws things against the wall and sees what sticks. On the other hand, I don’t want to be one of those people who is so married to a plan that I don’t see the opportunities in front of me. So much of my work is based on happy accidents.

There is part of me that does not like New Year’s resolutions because I feel that we should not pick an arbitrary date every 365 days to look at ourselves. I try to look at myself every time I get. On the other hand, what’s wrong with ringing in the New Year with a new sense of passion and work ethic? The caveat is to sustain this passion throughout the whole year, not just ramp up for a couple weeks and let things go back to the status quo.

What happened to me and I suspect to more people is this: First, they are unhappy with something in their life. They know they should do something about it; they make a plan and swear, okay, from this day forward, my life is going to be different. They try for a couple weeks, they don’t get the results they want and then they revert to their own ways. An example later, I promise.

I am putting this blog up because I do not want that cycle to re-occur in my own life. Here is what I’m working on for 2011, and here we go:

· I want to define and implement a marketing strategy so I can speak at least every two weeks.

· Read an article every day.

· Read a book every week.

· Focus heavily on my non-existent love life.

· Exercise more often.

· Get a major publisher.

Here is the example I promised: Let’s take my love life. In my mind, I define this goal above anything else my ultimate dream is to find a woman that I can have an incredible life with. As my number one goal, you would think that I would be devoting a lot of time to this, but I have found that the most important things in our lives often get the least of our attention. Some writers don’t even write. Some painters don’t even paint. On the same note, I am very dangerous with a paintbrush. What happens in my situation is that every month or so I get mad at myself for not treating my number one goal like my number one goal. I get excited about finding a girlfriend. I log on to Match.com and email many girls and get no response. Obviously I get discouraged. Ultimately what happens is that within a week or so, I stop trying because I don’t want to get hurt. This cycle keeps playing itself out and it sucks. What I have to do is not give up. I might need to try out other things like going out to better places or trying different websites. I have to define my number one goal…and now it’s on the internet (so it must be true because everything on the Internet is true, isn’t it?).

For some reason or another I have always given less priority and attention to my physical fitness. I know that if I workout, my life will be a little bit easier it will be easier for me to move. When I workout, I understand why I neglected my body for so long. I recognize that it’s a weakness in my personality. (Wait a minute, as a motivational speaker, am I allowed to admit that I have weaknesses?) I found a trainer in my local gym who is getting his masters in physical therapy with an emphasis in disability fitness, so right now I am training three times a week. The point is that I know my own weaknesses, and with a trainer I know that I can’t weasel out of training. If you have an issue in your life that you have a hard time dealing with, it’s okay to get outside help. After all, if I get fit, nobody is going to say, oh, he did it with a trainer so it doesn’t count and if you do, please stop reading my blog.

I’m excited for this year and I can’t wait to do other things on the list!