With the end of the year so rapidly approaching, it’s the perfect time to think about your accomplishments as well as the things you wish you had done differently this past year.
In order to be more successful in the new year than we were in the previous year, it’s essential to reflect on what worked and what didn’t work.
But the most important thing you can do to ensure success next year is to set goals.
Setting Goals for Long Term Success
A popular statistic in the human potential field suggests that 95%-97% of the people in the world do NOT have written goals and fail, while 3-5% have written goals and succeed. With this in mind, let me give you some examples of goals I’ve set for next year. (Many of them include you!)
My Goals:
- Write at least two blog posts per month with tons of actionable fundraising advice.
- Help one of my clients (a school) wrap-up a $10 million capital campaign. We are more than halfway there and should get to goal by the end of next year!
- Publish a new book to help everyone (including you) to raise more money. (Look for it this spring.)
- Volunteer at least two hours per week for my favorite organizations.
- Help you and your organization become better at fundraising by providing outstanding nonprofit consulting, training, and mentoring services.
Think about what you hope to accomplish in 2012. Write your goals down and review them each and every day.
Fueling Goals with Your Hopes and Passions
For your goals to succeed, they must be driven by passion. What drives you to succeed? How can you translate your hopes and wishes into actionable, specific goals?
Here are some of my wishes for the upcoming year. These are the things that fuel my goals of teaching you how to fundraise successfully.
My Hopes:
- Peace on Earth. I know it’s cliché, but I truly wish for it every day.
- The end of domestic violence, child abuse, and other violent crimes.
- That no human being should be without food, clean water or shelter.
- A clean environment for me, my children, and future generations.
- That people will slow down and take time to enjoy their lives each and every day.
Like so many people in the nonprofit sector, my goals are fueled by my hopes for a better tomorrow. But success begins with written goals. Once you have your goals written down, you can create a plan with actionable steps that will bring you closer to achieving each one.
Raising More Money in 2012
If your wish is to raise two, three or even TEN times more money for your organization in 2012, I’d be honored if one of your goals involved working with me directly as your fundraising consultant. I’d love to help. I have no doubt that we can accomplish some AMAZING things together in 2012!
What are your goals for the year? What do you wish for that will help fuel those goals? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Happy Holidays and a happy and healthy New Year to you!
Thanks for the good advice!
Could you please point me to those studies proving the written goal: success ratio data?
Hi Nancy –
Glad you enjoyed the post.
While I have seen the statistic many times in various publications, I recently came across it again while I was reading an article about goal setting posted on another blog. Here is a link to the article: http://www.busywomensfitness.com/goalsetting.html.
However, in doing more reasearch in response to your question, it seems I may have fallen victim to a urban legend. See the following articles: http://www.lifemastering.com/en/harvard_school.html and http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/fact-or-fiction-the-truth-about-the-harvard-written-goal-study. You’ll see in this post, the author has also seen the statistic utilized in many books and publications.
So, I can’t quote the original source, but it is a commonly used statistic. Regarding the rest of the post, that is gleaned from my own experience with success-driven goal setting for me personally, and with my clients.
Hope that helps.
Amy