We’ve been back home from our holiday for a few days now and the house is restored to order once again.

I said to a friend recently that there really is no point to going on holiday unless it’s for at least 5 days.

You need some time to justify all the packing and unpacking 🙂

The holiday was better than I expected – the babies behaved themselves, the weather was “beach good” 9 out of 10 days and I relaxed a lot. I even read 4 books. I read the 4th one in the car on my way back home.

Now to start thinking about the next holiday. I’m the type of person who likes to have something to look forward to so I need to know I’ll have another mini-break in May to tide me over for the next few months.

And while we’re in forward-thinking mode, let’s talk a little bit about how to choose your goals.

Your annual goals are not just a to-do list.

Every thought that enters your head is not a goal. That’s just something to do.

A goal, on the other hand, is something that will compel, excite and motivate you on the way to your life purpose.

E.g. If you want to do this little project and that little project, ask yourself if it’s contributing to your life purpose and it’ll become very clear what stays and what goes.

Do you read Simple Mom?

She also writes at Incourage, a Christian blog I follow, and in the last couple of weeks, she wrote a post about her 4 main goals for the year.

I loved that for the simple reason (pun totally intended!) that there is no clutter in her goal-making process.

She had just one goal in each of these 4 areas of her life – fun, personal, family and professional.

I have 22 for the year 🙂

Although I do have main goals and then some “cousin” goals (got that term from Jon Acuff). A cousin goal is one on the sidelines. When you achieve the main goal, you then start working on the cousin goal.

My main business goal for the year is to get my book published in print and on Amazon’s Kindle.

That’s it. Once that’s done, I have a few smaller cousin goals 🙂

So here are just 5 guidelines when choosing your 2012 goals:

1. do they excite and motivate you?
2. are they big and juicy?
3. are they specific?
4. do they contribute to your purpose?
5. given the right support, accountability and resources, could you achieve them?

If you get to answer them all “yes” you’re doing well.

Otherwise, let’s set you up with a personal goals session on Skype.

And if you haven’t yet downloaded your Jan goals form, it’s in your Time Management Purpose Pack on my website. What I really should call it is a mini goals form because these are the mini goals that will help you get to your (big) normal goals.

How are you doing on your January goals?