How to pare down your 2011 resolutions

From one of my faves, LifeHacker

“Get ready to cross things off your list. If you can’t answer the following questions about your resolutions they’ve got to go.

“Is your goal concrete? ‘Get Healthy’ is a garbage goal—it’s too nebulous to be useful. If you asked a dozen people to write down how to ‘get healthy’ you’d get a dozen different answers. Your resolution should be like a thesis statement for a paper; not ‘get healthy’ but ‘begin training as a runner to participate in October’s 10K Breast Cancer Charity Run’.

“What’s the next action? This is the sibling of concreteness. What do you do next? If you can’t think of anything to write down as a first step in your quest to accomplish whatever, then whatever is either too unobtainable, abstract, or boring to bother with.

“Is your resolution open ended? Resolving to adopt a positive habit that is open ended and extends beyond achieving simple goals is a great way to make long term changes. It’s better, for example, to resolve to walk a mile a day than it is to resolve to lose 10 pounds. You’ll lose weight walking and you won’t reach a point where quitting is an option.

“Who can support you? Your parents didn’t want you hanging around with Billy Hannigan because they didn’t want his bad habits rubbing off on you. Good habits work the same way. Who are you going to surround yourself with to foster your new habit?

“Is your goal realistic? Running, albeit not winning, a marathon after 8 months of training is realistic. Competing in a winter triathlon next month probably isn’t. Don’t set the bar on the floor but don’t set it so high that failure is the only option. More here.

These are wonderful rules for your network marketing goals as well. Think?