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My friend Marina Martin [ Sufficient Thrust ] has a terrific resource for setting New Year’s Resolutions that you should take a look at. I used this little booklet last year and it made an amazing difference in my effectiveness, in fact I accomplished all but two of my goals!

In my work here as a Productivity evangelist I have tried, experimented with, and discarded a ton of applications, methods, and practices for setting goals and getting them done. This one works. Martin says:

I’m the very definition of a Type-A personality and have worked as an efficiency consultant for years, so making lists and plans is second nature to me. Something I’ve come to believe strongly is that Type-A personalities perform best when we have specific action steps, as opposed to paragraphs of theory. The blogosphere is certainly full of posts about resolutions, but I couldn’t find anything that satisfied my craving for step-by-step success — so I made it myself! I use this exact same process myself whenever I have a goal to achieve, with great results, and I’m excited that others have benefited from it too.

Since I am such a laid-back, relaxed person this type of system appealed to me. How does this resolution-defining system work?

The Perfect New Year’s Resolution

The #1 reason why people don’t achieve their resolutions is because their resolutions weren’t really resolutions at all.

It’s no secret around here that I’m big on goal-setting. However, New Year’s Resolutions are a very specific kind of goal.

A New Year’s Resolution has to meet the following criteria:

* It must be achievable by 11:59pm on December 31 of that calendar year.
* It must be measurable AND specific. In other words, a complete stranger should easily be able to objectively determine whether or not you’ve achieved it.
* It should positively impact your life, if only indirectly.
* A process of events should be required in order to achieve it. “Visit Kenya” doesn’t count if you normally travel and it’s within your financial means and comfort zone. It would count, however, if you had to come up with some way of financing the trip, or if you moved there for a month, or if you were having an existential crisis about hippos and were going there to confront your fears.

Martin recommends creating 4-6 specific, actionable goals for the new year, and provides a resource for breaking those goals down into action steps. For example:

A lousy Resolution: “Lose weight”
A better one: “Lose 20lbs”
A really good example: “Weigh 134lbs naked on the morning of December 31″
And simply awesome: “Run three miles without stopping wearing XXS Aerie sweatpants”

The awesome version of this resolution not only incorporates two common goals — losing weight and exercising more — into one, but it also focuses on one of the real reasons we want to lose weight: to fit into a smaller clothing size. It doesn’t matter what number the scale shows if your pants won’t fit!

Read more about it and download the Ultimate Guide to New Year’s Resolutions here. And let’s all give Marina a big hug and thank you for sharing this resource with us!

For more help in keeping up your motivation and getting some accountability, you may want to get involved with Leo Babauta’s new 30 Day Challenge forum.

If you need even more help, or just want to discuss how to make 2009 your best year yet, feel free to drop me a line: Contact Stephen.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/8syo2y. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen