Now that we’re a month and a half into 2009 and a lot of new year’s resolutions have gone the way of last week’s tuna casserole, I’d like to talk a bit about goals.

Historically, I’ve been a terrible goal-setter. I’ve not been a big fan. I have a hard time translating the things I need to improve about myself from general concepts into specific, measurable objectives. I also have trouble setting goals that are not just items on a to-do list. A goal ought to be something I have to strain at least a bit to accomplish.

At work right now we’re going through our goal-setting process for the next year. In a department meeting, our CIO explained that for individual contributors to projects, the main focus of our goals should help us serve the stakeholders better. To a lesser degree, our goals should improve the way our department does things, and other goals should improve ourselves personally.

This categorization of our goals helped me immensely. I was able to go back to my desk and write up some goals that I felt would help me serve the customers and users better and provide better deliverables. Several of my goals affect how efficiently I work.

I’ve learned that one of the big obstacles to reaching goals is forgetting. We may not reach our goals simply because we get our noses down in our work and never look up to see what we’re supposed to be heading for. So part of my improvement over the next few months will be to review my goals regularly so they don’t disappear.

I hope that at the end of the next 12 months, I can look back and see clearly that I have improved over that time. I hope the change isn’t subtle. I think this year will be a turnaround for me when it comes to goals because I’ll find out I can actually set professional goals that matter and that will visibly improve things. I hope the things I try to accomplish and change about myself this year will turn into habits that will permanently affect in a positive way how I work.

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