How To Set Goals That Get What You Want Out Of The New Year Goal Setting Skills For The New Year or Any Time

Illustration by Bobby Gombert

By Elizabeth Scott, MS

Updated December 01, 2016

Source:  https://www.verywell.com/goal-setting-for-the-new-year-strategies-that-work-3144928

Every year, throngs of people—maybe even you—choose a list of resolutions for the next year. Generally, these are habits they will try to do every day, or habits they will try to avoid for as long as they can. Unfortunately, many of these resolutions are forgotten by March. A major reason for this is that it’s deceptively difficult to develop or deny ingrained habits ‘cold turkey’.

While the effort to adopt resolution shows a wonderful sense of positive intent, a better alternative is to develop new goals for the future.

Goals are a better plan than resolutions for a few key reasons:

Rigid vs. Fluid:

Resolutions stay the same: “I will go to bed by 10pm.” “I will stop eating junk.” “I will go to the gym five times a week.” If these are somewhat big changes, it may feel like a huge change with no buildup. Goals, however, can be tackled in steps, beginning with baby steps and increasing in difficulty as you become more accustomed to the change. This makes goals more realistic for lasting change.

Sense of Accomplishment vs. Sense of Failure:

Goals give you a direction to aspire to, but with the baby steps you may be taking toward your goal, you can still feel like you’ve accomplished something and are on the right track, which will, in turn, keep you moving in the right direction. Once you’ve broken a rigid resolution, however, it’s easier to feel like a failure and give up.

The Scope of the Change:

Resolutions are usually a means to a goal, but if you find a resolution too difficult to stick to, it’s usually dropped and forgotten.

With goals, if you find a planned change too difficult to carry out, you can drop that plan, but pick a different new behavior to try that will still lead to the same end result, and not lose sight of the goal. For example, imagine you want to get in the habit of exercising to be in better shape. You might make a resolution to go to the gym five times a week.

But if you find that you just hate the gym, you probably won’t stick to your resolution, and you’ll be no closer to your goal. However, if you make ‘getting more exercise’ the goal, you may drop the gym, but switch to walking through your neighborhood each morning, and still meet your goal.

Now that you know some of why resolutions often fail and goals are a more realistic route, here are some tips for setting goals you can get behind:

Keep your future in mind.

Think of what you would have in your ideal life, and where you’d like to be in two, five, or even ten years, and see if your goals bring you closer to that picture. If so, they’re good goals to stick with. If you can keep in your mind the image of where you would ultimately like your goals to take you, it’s easier to stick with them.

Think in terms of broad changes rather than specific behaviors.

For instance, resolving to “Develop A Stress Management Practice” gives more room for growth and change than “Do Yoga Every Morning”. While you’ll want to put your broad goals into specific behaviors, deciding to Develop a Stress Management Practicegives you room to experiment, and allows you to change course if you find that Yoga isn’t working for you.

Think in terms of what you’d like to add to your life, rather than what you’d like to take away.

For example, instead of making the goal to “Eat Less Unhealthy Food”, focus on trying to “Eat More Healthy Food”. You may subconsciously feel more deprived if you think of taking something away rather than adding something good, and if you replace unhealthy food in your diet with healthy food, the same goal is accomplished. Also, it’s usually easier to add a behavior than to stop a behavior.

Create Habits

Once you have your goals set, keep them in the forefront of your mind. Keep them listed in your day-planner, have them as part of your screen saver, or post-it them in prominent places around your house for a while. Then, break them down into smaller goals, and think of what steps you need to take to reach these goals. Then, and this is key, create habits that can lead you to your goals.  Think of what specific habits you can maintain that will make bigger changes in your life if you maintain them, and embed them into your schedule in the easiest ways you can think to maintain them. For example, if you'd like to be more fit, commit to exercising for a reasonable amount of time (you can increase it as the habit becomes more engrained, but shoot for something that will help you feel accomplished but not exhausted, and something you can stick to), and assign a time each day when you'll practice this habit.  It works best if this time is connected to an existing habit, like right before you shower, or on your way home from work.

Finally, reward yourself with something small for continuing to stick with it, until you make enough progress toward your goals that the progress becomes its own reward. And remember that change doesn’t come overnight, but as you work toward developing what is important to you, the change will come, and it will be lasting. Remember this, and enjoy building the life you were meant to live!  

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The psychology of fonts: What your typeface says about you

Lisa Yates is the design manager at Lava, an award-winning marketing agency in Lincoln. 

Published September 2, 2014 

Did you know that the font type you choose for your logo could influence how others see your business? Have you ever sat next to someone who has sneered at a Comic Sans logo? I would be surprised if not, as this is just one font that seems to be able to curl the toes of most creative types. 

When designing a logo, you’re attempting to communicate multiple messages in the simplest form possible. The typeface you use not only represents your company’s motives, but your characteristics as well. 

Pick the right font and it will amplify the meaning of the words, but pick the wrong one and you could end up sending out mixed messages – which would be nothing short of a disaster.
 
So which font should you choose? Here’s my quick guide to the different types of fonts on offer and the psychology behind them:
 
Serif fonts – think Times New Roman or Baskerville. These fonts are characterised by a slight decorative projection added as an embellishment to a letter. Implying a sense of tradition, respectability and reliability, this type of font would be good for a company looking to emphasise its pedigree or heritage – but be warned, a younger crowd might see them as too ‘old school’. 

Sans serif fonts – think Helvetica, Ariel or Franklin Gothic. Clean, simple and futuristic, Sans Serif typefaces are very popular, especially in educational applications. They’re easy to read, which makes them ideal for the visually impaired and work well for companies wanting to send out a straightforward message and give the impression of reliability and honesty.

Modern fonts – these fonts include Futura, Avant Garde and Century Gothic. Strong and dependable but with a touch of sophistication. Modern fonts suit forward-looking brands and are ideal for fashion lines, companies in niche markets and luxury brands.

Script fonts – cursive and handwritten fonts can be beautiful but proceed with caution! Care needs to be taken over legibility when using a font like Zapfino or Scriptina. A logo font is often reduced in size for stationery etc. and nobody is going to understand a message they can’t read or remember. However, these can convey elegance, femininity or creativity. A font that looks genuinely handwritten can also give your design a sense of informality or spontaneity.

Novelty fonts – these typefaces are a bit different from the norm and generally you wouldn’t want to read a lot of text in them. However, they can work well for logos and singular words. Beware though, staff and customers may quickly tire of something overly childish (unless, of course, it is for a brand that is aimed at children). 
 
Custom fonts – can’t find what you really want in a typeface? Then you could always have a custom font created. For companies like Coca-Cola, Disney and Pinterest customised fonts have become synonymous with their brand. It’s an expensive option but one that will give you a unique look that stands out, consistency across your brand and above all the freedom to do what you want.

So think carefully before you choose your font. What subliminal message will it put across to your customers? Experiment with different fonts and you’ll quickly be able to see which style is right or wrong for you.

Have an Idea for a start-up? Here are some of the questions you should ask yourself

Gil Rosenblum

Lawyer: Business, Tech, Corporations

Oct 23 2014

So you have an idea for a start-up and you don’t really know what to do now. I seem to run into people confronted with this quite often lately. Being involved in the start-up world for a while now, I want to give you my perspective from a bystander’s point of view. The first thing you need to do is ask yourself a few questions, and be honest with yourself:

Are you passionate about your idea?

Do you have a burning desire to see it through? Are you staying awake at night contemplating the details of your idea? Are you impatient to know everything about it? Does it interest you? Are you dreaming about it when you sleep?

If you answered OH YEA to one or more of the above, do it.

Are you in it JUST for the money?

Most likely you won’t be rolling in the dough anytime soon. In fact, this is an intricate and risky business; the chances of success are not great nor does success come fast. If it’s money you are after then you probably should do something else.

Are you good with babies?

This idea of yours is going to be your baby. The amount of love you are going to put into it will have a big impact on your success. It’s going to require some change of diapers and attention on your part. It will also keep you up at night. If it’s only cute when it is someone else’s, drop it.

Do you love your job?

It is not every day one finds a job he really enjoys. Being your own boss sounds like fun but it may not be as glamorous as you might think. There are going to be some out of pocket expenses, no one likes that. It is also stressful, uncertain and the money might not be as good as you think. At first, you are probably going to be able to keep your job, but running a start-up is very time consuming and at some point you’ll have to quit. If you really love your job, keep it.

Are you a hardcore corporate type?

If you enjoy corporate politics, long meetings, regulations, bureaucracy, protocols and performing a rather specifically defined functions, if you are a nine to five kind of person then a start-up is not for you.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

Having high standards is undoubtedly an important trait for a founder of a start-up. However, as mentioned, this is an intricate business. It involves a lot of compromises and you are most likely going to make a lot of mistakes. So if not just you – but also your psychiatrist – consider you to be a perfectionist, you might want to seat this one out.