The forecast: stormy, bleak, doom and gloom? I don’t think so. You didn’t start or take over a business to improve your skills at playing the victim role. When you kicked into second and third gear, it was because you saw stars in the sky and you knew you were making your own choices, creating your own destiny. Right?

So, let’s look at the mess we’re in realistically. We have a chance to get out of this year standing upright, and to make happen what has to happen. To jump-start 2012– make the very best possible use of the next two weeks. That means, first and foremost, to do family relax time, pay attention to your SELF, and go with the flow.

In other words, abandon the maniacal pursuit you’ve been on all year in favor of jetting down, assessing yourself and your business. Refocus your day-to-day activities. Relax your brain, and set some meaningful, realistic goals that serve to both challenge and guide your interests and activities.

Did I say “meaningful”? Yes. Scribbling or txtg a nice-sounding statement about what you aim to do in 2012 may make you feel like patting yourself on the back, but it doesn’t mean beans about what’s real and possible and what needs to be flexible and specific and have a deadline attached. Who says? The Chief Goal Keeper.

If what you come up with as a target for yourself and your business fails to accomplish all six (That’s ALL SIX!) of the following criteria, you are simply not serious about wanting to improve your life. People fail at goal-setting because they fail to be flexible, to realize that not reaching a goal means only one thing: Change The Goal!

To be effective, any goal you set must be specific, flexible, realistic, due-dated, written on paper (and adjusted regularly), and carried on your person! Take all six of these steps, and keep your goals to yourself (because too many people who don’t have goals will try to discourage you from achieving your own!). 

If you do exactly what’s suggested here, you will be successful beyond your wildest dreams in 2012 because you will be making it happen… because you are an entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs don’t “go into” things; they make things happen. Will you? Are you an entrepreneur or a victim? Creating your own destiny is your choice!