For the past several years, Chris Brogan has defined his goals/resolutions for each year with a series of words. I follow a lot of Chris’ writing via his blog and upon reading about his method for setting his annual goals last year, I thought I’d give it a try.

I liked his method. (You can read more about it here.) Correction, we liked his method. So sometime shortly after the calendar changed from 2010 to 2011, Hubz and I sat down to define the handful of words that we wanted our 2011 to swirl around. Like Chris, we wanted these words to be a constant base to be used to launch the more specific goals we set for ourselves, in addition to helping us to refocus or make decisions about priorities, if the need arose.

We defined 2011 as the year of: Freedom, Family, Property, Discipline.

We typed out the words in ultra-large font, printed out the page, and taped it up multiple places around the house. And then we promptly ignored them.

It was interesting and fun and scary and reassuring to look back on those words come December 31st. Like many goals that are defined and then written down, it was thrilling to prove to ourselves once again how rarely you have to consciously think about a goal to still make significant progress towards making it a reality.

I love that about them. Goals.

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Freedom This was the foundation of everything we wanted 2011 to be for us. I have my time freedom. Hubz does not. Together we’ve both moving towards more financial freedom. Building our residual income via rental properties, building and strengthening the income coming in via our Vemma business, and being open to additional opportunities was what we wanted this goal to reflect. Gaining our freedoms was to be the underlying priority in everything we did.

“Does this help us get closer to those freedoms?” we would ask ourselves. If the answer was no, we didn’t want to be doing it.

We did pretty well with this goal. It’d be a lie if we said we didn’t have hopes to be able to obtain the time freedom for Hubz by the time the calendar ran out on 2011. We didn’t make it. At least not to the level that we felt comfortable with. But we made significant progress on several fronts, and that was definitely a success. The feeling that this word evoked in us will carry into our 2012 plans, for sure.

Family The most personal of our defining words for the year. January 1, we were struggling with several months of frustration over starting a family. Turns out two Type A personalities can’t control the timing for everything in their lives. Harumph. That struggle, however, ended up being a blessing in disguise. Especially for me.

There was a lot I knew about myself at the end of December 2011 that I wasn’t anywhere near knowing in January. Personally, professionally, physically, even spiritually. Every area of my life was strengthened because of that journey. Everything from accupuncture to journaling to self-reflection to travel helped me get there. But I wouldn’t have even come close if I hadn’t forced myself to take a step back and work on things. To make Family become a reality.

By August, it was. And come late April 2012, it really will be.

Defining Family as one of our words related strongly to Freedom, too. We wanted one to help support the other. We wanted the other to experience the one.

Basing the transformation of our year from January to December in regards to Family? A success a million times over.

Property Nothing abstract about this one. We wanted more properties. More than that though, we wanted to make sure that every financial decision we made in 2011 was measured up against our ability to increase our property portfolio. We wanted to be smart and calculating, yet agressive.

Property, obviously so, tied right in with the larger goal of Freedom and indirectly to Family. All a big circle.

January 1st we owned one property in cash that was in the midst of a massive renovation. December 31st we had sufficiently leveraged that property, had it rented and cashflow positive, a significant cash cushion built up in the LLC that we owned it with, and a second property purchased and renovated using Other People’s Money, just added to the rental market. Not too shabby.

Discipline If Freedom was the base that everything our 2011 swirled around, Discipline was what was going to keep that swirling in motion. This was also a more personal goal. Quite simply, we wanted to step up our discipline.

Remember the kill the snake mentality? Yeah. That.

Discipline would remind us to take care of the little things, and to take care of them now. To make the phone call now. To research the new idea now. To take a small step every day a bit beyond the necessary. We hoped that, over the 365 days of the year, those tiny changes would add up to a big deal. (A la The Compound Effect and The Slight Edge.)

It’s hard to measure, but I think they did. I think they could have even more, though. So, if I had to pick, I’d say we succeeded the least (like that wording?) in defining our 2011 by this word, especially compared to all the others.

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And that was our 2011! Chock full of growth professionally, educationally (is that a word?), spiritually, personally, and financially.

2012 will be one for the record books.

Four to five months in, parenthood and all it entails will hit us. Rental property #2 will hopefully, quickly, very soon-ish be rented and supporting itself, plus adding to our real estate business’s cashflow. We hope to add a property #3 to the ledger. We have several huge, personal financial goals related to both parenthood and properties. With the launch of an enormous new product line three days into the new year, I have ambitious goals for our Vemma business this year, too. Simply keeping volunteering a focus would be a huge goal on its own. Growing this site, its readership, and its offerings, venturing into ebooks and information products, is an ambition as well. Oh, and have I mentioned my new post at Silicon Prairie News? Doing whatever I can to support and help grow their mission will also get a part of my focus.

2012. It’s already tiring me out just thinking about it. But in the greatest way.

If I haven’t lost you and you’re still reading, first of all, thank you. You’re my hero! And why I occasionally share more with you in this public space than I would if we were face to face. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to do so.

And for not laughing. Too hard.

Stay tuned for more specifics on my plans for 2012! In the mean time, I would be honored to hear about what you’re working towards this year.

How are you going to define your 2012? Have you set any specific goals? Made any resolutions? Defined a few words to set you on the right path?

Do share.

Cheers to ya’ll,
AS

Yesterday I talked about a talk about trying something new for 30 days.

What was that, Annie?

Sorry. Self-editing.

I promised not only to share with you what ideas I decide to implement for a fun-filled 30 days (still workin’ on it), but a friend of mine that’s working on a cool 30-day challenge of his own.

That friend is Grant Peelle. Yay, Grant!

A few weeks ago, frustrated with recent changes in his businesses and looking for a bout of inspiration and creativity, he decided to launch a personal challenge: create 30 short films in 30 days.

Grant is a filmmaker. It’s his love. His creativity. His thang.

What better way to spark – or re-spark – your creativity than by forcing yourself out of your comfort zone. Especially when you’re doing something you love.

Don’t you agree?

I thought so.

Grant posts his daily videos on his blog, http://grantpeelle.wordpress.com, and is well into Day 9 of his challenge. Stop by and say hello, will ya?

His videos are short and sweet (usually 1-2 minutes in length), always have a great soundtrack to push them along, and range in subject matter from a potential commercial for a Ford Focus

to a few hours in the life of his 4 year-old son

to a behind the scenes look at a professional recording session for a friend’s new information product.

Neat!

If you love film, creativity, or just witnessing someone accomplishing something really cool, you’ll enjoying spending a few minutes on this site.

Go Grant Go! Congrats on accomplishing almost one-third of your monthly challenge.

We’re cheering you on.

This is an incredibly lighthearted, casual video from an engineer at Google named Matt Cutts, but well worth the 3 minutes:

An extremely simple, unoriginal message – not unlike practically all personal development messages – yet thought-provoking, don’t you think?

What shall we try? What shall we do! Our options are endless.

This is gonna be fun.

Off to brainstorm 30 day challenges,
Your Geekiness

P.S. I have a friend 8 days deep into a really fun 30-day challenge of his own. Tell ya about it tomorrow…

It’s no secret that I am a fan of goal-setting. In fact, you might even go so far to say that I’m a bit bonkers for it. (Let’s see, I talked about it here and here. And it’s also related to this and this.) Nate and I set goals every January, writing down in our journals what we’d like to accomplish for the year. Personal goals, professional goals, everything. We’re even pretty good at reviewing them two to three times throughout the year, discussing how we’ve measured up.

I am aware of the power of setting goals,
I am aware of the importance of actually writing them down,
and I am even aware of how big of a differentiating factor reviewing them regularly can be to their accomplishment.

However, it could be better. We could do better.

I was reminded this weekend of several successful entrepreneurs who review their goals every day. EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.

Yikes!

Goal-setting, beyond actually defining the goals themselves, is all about putting into motion the actions necessary to accomplish things you already believe, things you already KNOW will come true. Things that WILL BE true. We review ours about every quarter. But the rest of the year? They sit in a closed journal buried within a pile of paperwork on my desk.

The biggest successes get their goals out in the open. They’re taped up above the monitor on their desk or they’re attached to the back of the medicine cabinet in their bathroom that they open two times a day or they’re smack in the middle of the door to the fridge.

So I guess this is my accountability. Me to you. I’m going to be better.

Let’s set them and write them and review them every day. Several times a day.

I can’t wait to see what we accomplish.

You with me?

It occurred to me a couple days ago that I hadn’t reviewed my life list in several months. I *love* these realizations. It’s a known fact that simply writing down your goals and dreams is a massive step towards actually making them come true. Don’t ask me how, but writing them down clicks something in your brain. You can consciously “forget” about the item, yet your brain never does. Long story short, reviewing the list after a period of time often leads to wonderful surprises of accomplishment that, at the time, you didn’t even realize were happening.

Aren’t our minds weird?

Anyway, I love when I “remember” that I haven’t reviewed my list in a while, because every time that happens it’s usually a notification from that crazy, hidden part of my brain that, “Hey! You’ve accomplished something! GO SEE WHAT IT WAS.”

Upon reviewing my list, I realized that I just accomplished an enormous item:

My last day at The Corp was January 22, 2010. I’m 28, turning 29 this coming April. Which means I accomplished that item from the list exactly as I had said I wanted to – before I turned 29.

Awesome.

What’s interesting about this item, specifically, is that I absolutely couldn’t have “fired” all bosses besides myself it those bosses hadn’t been so amazing. Seriously. My former employer offered me so many opportunities to grow as a person, as an employee, and indirectly, as an entrepreneur. They were flexible, trusting, and encouraging. Both the company as a whole and the individuals I was able to call team members and managers.

They know who they are, and I sincerely hope someday that they land on this post. When they do, I’d love to say thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.

1. I’m gonna rock Twitter‘s face off.

2. I’m gonna take even more advantage of the amazing, personalized networking that takes place on DailyBooth.

3. I’m gonna launch 3 new websites & 1 web tv show.

4. It’s gonna be amazing.

More where those came from. What’s on your radar for two-oh-one-oh?

Is it worth it to write down your goals? I think it is and here’s why.

P.S. The blog post I reference in the video can be found here.
P.P.S Don’t forget that we’re going through a site re-design! Thanks for being patient with us, even though we look a little wonky.

For the past several months I’ve been following one of my favorite bloggers, Maggie Mason of MightyGirl, as she detailed out the results of an amazing opportunity she received from Intel to fulfill 10 items from her LifeList on someone else’s dime.

Maggie is an accomplished author and blogger, in addition to an inspiring, creative, and fascinating person, so her posts on the life list items she choose to live out, the shenanigans that entailed, and the experiences she had were amazing. I’ve been following them religiously not only because of their high inspiration and entertainment value, but because I have a life list of my own. I know how it feels to cross out an item. And I can only dream how it would feel if a giant corporation called me up one one day and nonchalantly announced that not only were they going to encourage me to set aside my normal day-to-day routine for a few months and cross out ten items of my choosing, but they would fit the bill.

I mean. Wow.

Last week Maggie posted her final piece of the campaign and it didn’t disappoint. I’ve been adding and crossing out entries on my own life list since mid-2006 so I was inspired not only by Maggie’s experience the past few months but by the simple fact that her list is displayed for the world to see on her website. Everyone can see it! EV.ER.Y.ONE. Her dreams, goals, and aspirations, both serious and silly. Out in the open! So courageous.

Maggie inspired me, so I’ve decided to do something a bit crazy. I’m going to publicize my own life list.

OH MY GOSH I’M GOING TO PUBLICIZE MY LIFE LIST.

So, here it is, kids. In all of its glory. I’ll eventually get to creating a widget on the sidebar to permanantly display the list, but until then you can reference it within this post. The only reason I could convince myself to do this, and why I’d imagine Maggie also threw hers out to the big, bad, public Internet wolves, is that I hope it inspires someone. And not because I think that I’m personally more inspiring than anyone else, I’m most definitely not, but because if me showing my list of dreams and aspirations encourages even one other person out there to write a list of their own, it will be worth it.

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ALS Life List
Est. 07/11/2006

1. Get married
2. Give birth to/adopt 2 children, if not 3…or 4
3. Get my master’s degree for no other reason than to formally learn something new
4. Ride RAGBRAI all 7 days
5. Own a lake home
6. Ski a black diamond
7. Own a business
8. Run a half marathon
9. Run a full marathon
10. Go on an Alaskan cruise
11. Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef
12. Be financially independent
13. Go deep sea fishing
14. Buy my Daddy the truck he’s always wanted but never reasoned purchasing
15. Get my real estate license
16. Write a published letter to the editor
17. Spend at least 2 weeks on a United States road trip
18. Own a black Range Rover
19. Watch fireworks in some location other than North America
20. Ride a horse on a beach
21. Re-learn how to play the piano…and play WELL
22. Volunteer at an animal shelter
23. Write/publish a best-selling book…or two…or three!
24. Enter a golf tournament
25. Join the PTA
26. Donate enough money to at least one thing in my community that it qualifies for a name on a plaque/bench/building/etc…and put my parents names on it
27. Win a public speaking award
28. Learn how to sew
29. Have a vegetable/herb garden
30. Attend the Olympics on a continent other than North America
31. Build a house with Habitat for Humanity
32. Inspire a stranger in such a way that they rush up to me in an airport & share their success story about how they literally ARE living a better life because of something I created/wrote/said/filmed.
33. Tour California wine country
34. Professional decorate my home
35. Own and love a doggie
36. Decide on Monday to take a fabulous vacation on Friday to somewhere I’ve never been…and GO
37. Hike around a volcano
38. Swim in all of the world’s major oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean, Indian)
39. Dance in a city plaza in Prague
40. Host an exchange student
41. Step foot on all 7 continents
42. Comission a custom-made business suit
43. Own a Rolex
44. Drink a cappuccino in Italy
45. Visit the sailboat sail hotel in Dubai
46. Send an anonymous financial gift to someone, large enough that it changes their lives
47. Turn a house into a home that is decorated so perfectly that it truly makes me more comfortable waking in the front door
48. Go to Africa on a mission trip
49. Spend a month in Italy with my family…on my dime.
50. Finally have a haircut I love
51. Reach the point where I feel like I eat and live as naturally and healthy as possible
52. Take a weekend trip with a child under 1 year old
53. Slalom water ski
54. Take cooking classes
55. Host Thanksgiving dinner
56. Climb an Egyptian pyramid
57. Take a photo of a white-and-blue-dwelling-dotted Greece coastline
58. Stand under a waterfall
59. Zipline through the rainforest
60. Get invited to the set of Mythbusters
61. Own a Colorado mountain home for Nathan…and all of our extended family
62. Make a piece of furniture
63. Be a guest on someone’s private jet
64. Walk part of the Appalachian Trail
65. Try caviar
66. Affect enough people’s lives that some editor wants to put me on the cover of their magazine
67. Take/host our extended family on a beach vacation
68. Create a magnificent library in our home
69. Attend a black tie event
70. Visit Angel Falls in Venezuela
71. Be 100% my own boss (aka. FIRE any other bosses) before I turn 29
72. Sit in Central Park & people watch all day long
73. Attend Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder meeting and listen to Warren Buffet speak
74. Eat dinner at Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, FL…home of the world’s largest restaurant collection of wine
75. Get invited to be interviewed on a national talk show
76. Eat dinner at the French Laundry in Napa Valley, CA

Cannot WAIT to see your lists.

Go. Dream. Be inspired.

Do you have a life list? Yes? No? Is it in your head or written down? Do you think lists like this are silly? If you do believe in life lists, send me a note when you cross an item off, I’ll save a high-five for ya…

I posted about the relationship between visualization and goal-setting on my Vemma blog yesterday. The short version? Visualization is hugely important. MASSIVE. It has the ability to make or break the accomplishment of your goals.

To read the post in its entirety, go here. I’m visualizing many of you doing it right now. :)

Imagine…you probably wouldn’t hop into an airplane if you knew the pilot was going to get up into the air and simply fly around aimlessly until he landed somewhere. Nor would you expect to succeed in college if you didn’t have a set schedule of which class to attend, when, and for how long. Sounds kind of ridiculous, right? Many areas of our life simply wouldn’t make sense if they didn’t have a plan, a roadmap to follow, a purpose. So why do so many entrepreneurs make the grand effort to start a business without writing down a single goal?

The importance of having a plan and setting goals is paramount. Not only long term goals – “I will be in the top 5% of the sales force by December 2010″ – and short term, intermediate goals – “I will make 10 sales this quarter” – but daily, actionable goals, too – “I will make 15 calls today to new contacts.”

Work backwards. What’s your long-term goal? Write it down. (And yes, I mean actually taking pen to paper, people, there are studies out there to prove that writing it down is necessary.) Then, take that long term goal and break it down into intermediate goals. If your long term goal was 2 years away, where do you need to be in 6 months, 1 year, and 18 months from now to hit your 2 year goal? Write those down. Break them down as far as necessary. When do you say when? If your goal is detailed enough to generate a daily or weekly to-do list, you’ve gone far enough. Take your earliest goal, say your 6 month, and determine where you will be in 3 months and 1 month to hit the 6 month mark. Take your 1 month goal, what do you need to do every day this month to achieve that milestone? There! You’ve reached to purpose of goal-setting: to generate your daily action plan.

If you know where you’re going and you know how to get there, then achieving your goals becomes less of a wish and more of, well…a sure-thing. You know what else? You’ll have the confidence and clarity that yes, you ARE in fact going in the right direction.

Write down your goals, break them down to help generate your daily plan of action, and watch your aspirations come to life.

(This post based on a recent discussion in a TwoSalesGirls.com forum.)