Tend often to your dreams...

How many did you keep?

Think back. It's not been that long.

How many of your 2014 New Year's Resolutions did you keep?

I think it's a sad part of our binge-culture, in a world saturated by a media that can only think on one topic at a time, where ingrained seasonality blinds us to lazy marketing, that we allow ourselves to be suckered into chosing one time of year to make promises to ourselves that we know we won't keep.

Don't do it.

Or more to the point - do do it.. but do it often, do it openly, be smart.

Practice Makes Perfect

A brother of mine, who runs a online education start-up, taught me the phrase: “An amateur practises until they get it right. A professional practises until they cannot get it wrong”.

It's a wonderful truth and it should be applied to the act of setting goals as much as it should be to anything else in life.

If you want to be brilliant at reaching your goals you have to practice the art of setting them until you cannot get it wrong.

Be Smart, Be Visionary

There's a contradiction inherant the art of setting goals.

The old SMART acronym is a powerful reminder to ensure that you set goals that you're going to be able to tick off. If you set goals that aren't specific, measureable, achieveable, realistic and time-based then you will never get the satisfaction of achieving anything. You'll burn out chasing a mirage.

But beware. If you're only focused on the short term, on the goals you need to achieve this week, goals defined by your immediate environment and responsibilities then you will miss the real prize.

As well as being smart you need to be visionary. To do that you need to understand your own vision, your own purpose.

You need to understand why you're trying to achieve these goals that you're setting for yourself.

Tend often to your dreams...

Write a list. Tick things off. It's good for you. It's cathartic. Make it a habit. Make it part of your week. Practice.

And most of all make sure to write down why these goals are important to your purpose in live too. Never allow yourself to loose sight of why you're trying to achieve all the things you tell yourself you need to achieve.

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.” -- Edward Whymper