Happy New Year! To help you start your year off right, today's post is packed with goal setting resources from myGreenlight. Enjoy!

The Five Lists You Need to Set the Right Goals this Year
In honor of the recent creation of myGreenlight's Course III, we’re releasing an article from it. Create clarity around your dream career by creating five simple, yet meaningful, lists.

Set Your Goals for Success in Six Steps
You probably have plenty of experience setting goals. But for whatever reason, you haven't often followed through. It happens. They weren’t the right goals, or you didn’t have support to keep you on track. Or perhaps your goals changed over time, and now you MUST re-evaluate. This guide will provide the tools you need to set commitments that matter, and achieve goals with consistency and focus.

An Alternative to Goal Setting, Just in Time for 2012
December’s Master’s Mission from the venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and coach Christine Comaford helps you to identify not just goals, but true “needle movers” that will transform your business and/or personal life.

The RAP that Made Me a First-Time CEO
If you haven’t yet created a Relationship Action Plan (RAP), get motivated to do so by watching this video of me explaining the RAP that made me a first-time CEO.

Hope these resources help you make 2012 your best year yet.

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Ready for this month's myGreenlight master's mission? This is your chance to identify the fundamental "needle movers" that will create success in 2012. -KF

Does the idea of setting goals instantly paralyze you? Have you found goal-setting to be an ineffective way to create real change in your life?

On a recent Social Capitalist call, the author, CEO, venture capitalist, and coach Christine Comaford gave myGreenlighters the following mission to improve their 2012 planning:

Identify needle movers, rather than goals, for 2012.

Needle movers are actions that will truly move the needle forward in your business or personal life – essentially goals that change your life fundamentally. While a goal is binary and can leave you feeling great or defeated, a needle mover ends with you either reaching your target (what you want), the minimum (what you are willing to accept), or a mind blowing result (beyond your wildest dreams!). You won’t always get the exact result you want but you will have moved the needle forward.

To complete Christine’s mission, write down the three things that would change everything for you in your business life and your personal life. Three in each category. For example, Christine said that one of her 2012 needle movers will be to take at least seven personal retreats to do yoga and explore nature throughout the year. Getting centered allows her to be of better service to her network and to be overall more productive, healthy, and happy.

What are your 2012 needle movers? Please share – your ideas may inspire someone else!

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In addition to being an undisputed world champion boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard is also the perfect example of someone who did not simply "work hard”; but rather worked harder, and smarter, and in a more focused direction than everyone else. I call this trait: hustle.

Sugar Ray realized at a very young age that if he wanted to beat his opponents in the ring, he would have to out work them and out smart them (a.k.a out hustle them!) inside and outside of the ring. I had the honor of sitting down with Ray for an interview for my upcoming book and during the interview Ray shared a story from his early childhood that colorfully illustrates his hustle.

So every morning, Ray would wake up, get dressed for school, and would walk with his siblings to the bus stop. As the yellow bus would pull to the curb, his friends and siblings would step up into the school bus, but little Ray Leonard would refuse to get on. As the bus drove away, Ray would tighten up his sneakers and would begin running behind the bus all the way to school. "The other kids thought I was crazy," Ray told me, because he would run in the, "rain, snow, it didn't matter."

After sharing the story with me, Sugar Ray candidly said he did such extreme things "because I didn't just want to be better than the next guy, I wanted to be better than all the guys."

If Ray followed the simplified conventional wisdom of "hard work leads to success", he would have done what everyone else was doing at his age: waiting until after school to go and train in the gym. But Ray understood that he needed that extra 1% edge to win his early fights, and that tiny edge grew exponentially as the years passed. It is no surprise that by the end of his boxing career he had an Olympic Gold Metal and six World Championship belts to his name.

There are a lot of people who simply dismiss advice from athletes based on the assumption that all athletes are functioning on their innate talents. While genetics plays an obvious role, this story from Sugar Ray's childhood really shows that his extraordinary success lied not in his natural abilities, but in his internal drive to out hustle his competition—every, single, day.

Here is your mini-mission: take a moment to reflect on your biggest goal. Are you "hustling" every moment you can? Are there any running behind the school bus actions you can add to your daily routine to give you that extra edge? Success is much more than hard work; you first need to be more focused, be smarter, and only then will working harder pay off with extraordinary results. Are you willing to run behind the bus while the other kids laugh? Only then will you take full ownership of your future success.

Ray did it when he was only 10 years old. What’s stopping you?

--Alex

"Alex Banayan is one of the top pupils of relationship mastery. He is a former intern of Ferrazzi Greenlight and is now an author, as well as a student at USC's Marshall School of Business. Alex is using the lessons he's learned about relationships to make his ambitious and optimistic vision into a reality. You can connect with Alex even further on his blog or on his facebook page.” 

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One of the key things that we talk about at myGreenlight (formerly RMA) is the idea of strategically linking people to your goals.  In addition to thinking about WHAT you need to do –  if you think about WHO can help, and HOW you can enlist them to do so, success is that much closer at hand.

Look at what you need to get done this week.  Pick one thing and then think about WHO could help make it happen.  How are you going to reach out to them in a generous way?

Let us know!

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New year, new drive, new goals. The first step to actualizing your goals is writing them down – that's why it's the first step of RMA's Relationship Action Planning tool.

RMA Ambassador and consulting associate director Aimee Lucas is leading the pack on the forums in putting her thoughts for 2011 into action.  Inspired by our own FG analyst Joe Nigro’s challenge to RMAers to the write the ‘Top 10 (or 5) Things to Accomplish for 2011’, Aimee finally put down on paper what she’s been throwing around in her head.  She will use the next couple of weeks to create action plans for each step.  Great work, Aimee and Joe!

What's one of your goals for 2011?

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We have survey results back from our Pilot II RMA class and I wanted to share some of the most frequently-cited goals:

1.      Greatly increasing the sales and revenue of their companies or teams.

2.      Increasing their current customers' loyalty, engagement, and retention.

3.      Exponentially increasing the overall trajectory of their businesses and/or careers.

4.      Finding greater personal fulfillment in their careers.

5.      Developing stronger connection and having more ease and self-confidence within their professional relationships.

Are any of you here working on any of these goals? Which is most important to you and why?

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When Joy Meredith was getting ready to throw her hat back into the job-hunting ring, she wanted to take the smartest and most efficient path to finding a new gig. Inspiration struck when Joy realized that an agent had been instrumental in landing her first book deal.  Why not enlist an agent to find a great gig?   Then Joy went beyond that and thought – “Why not reach out to the people who know me and think I'm brilliant and create an army of agents?”

Joy hatched the idea for her Joyful Job Bounty and sent it out to the universe via her blog, Twitter, and anywhere else she could think to share.  Joy’s Joyful Job Bounty offers 10% of her new salary to anyone who puts her in touch with the right people to land her next project.

Joy’s bounty was inspired by Never Eat Alone and Who’s Got Your Back, and to move forward even further Joy wanted to join the RMA program.  She reached out and offered an additional bounty on a scholarship to RMA.  If what she learned in RMA led to her next opportunity, she would pay back the tuition along with a matching charitable contribution.

Impressed by Joy’s ingenuity, I am giving her a 50% scholarship to RMA --  and 9 more scholarships will go to other unemployed people who can make a case for what they would do with the knowledge gained in the program. Winners will only pay $150 for the entire 10-week RMA program!

Do you want to be one of the other 9 scholarship recipients?   Send an e-mail to community@relationshipmastersacademy.com with the subject line: Pick Me for RMA Scholarship and tell me why you should receive a scholarship and what you will do with what you learn in RMA.  You must be over 18 years of age and unemployed in order to be eligible.

Good luck!

For discussion: What creative strategies have helped you find a job in the past?

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"My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had - every day I'm learning something new."-Richard Branson

I’m not just a coach in the Relationship Masters Academy program pilot that launched yesterday – I’m also a student!

I’m taking the course right along with our pilot class. Marketers call that “eating your own dog food” – a great way to show faith in the product or service you’re selling. The expression apparently came from an old Alpo commercial, in which the actor Lorne Greene said his own dog ate the product.

But I’m not just taking the RMA program to prove that it’s “tasty.” I’m doing it because even we experts constantly need to refresh our skills. This is an opportunity to up my own game over the next 11 weeks.

Redrafting my personal vision statement as part of Lesson 1 was my first task. Here’s the format we use – take stab at drafting your own today! Then post it where you’ll see it all the time.

“I will become [your role] who will [your goal] within [time period]."

Here’s what I came up with – I’ll be rethinking and tweaking it all week long:

"I will become a powerful GLOBAL force for change in people's lives who will prove that strong relationships are the fastest, most effective, most joyful pathway to success, within two years and throughout my life."

What skills do you need to refresh and can drafting your own personal vision statement help?

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"It's never too late to be who you might have been." -George Elliot

I won’t BS you: finding your passion, discovering your strengths, and most of all MAKING IT HAPPEN is not as easy as it sounds.  So, I’m constantly seeking strategies to make it easier.

Here's one: Five simple lists that you can make to set yourself on the path to discovering your dream job.  All you have to do is take a quiet hour to make these lists:

1. Every profession you’ve ever dreamed or thought of having

You wanted to be a fireman? Write it down!  Pharmacist? Great!  Put it on the list. The idea here is to brainstorm – don’t limit yourself by what you feel is “possible.”  You will start to see patterns among the jobs you list here. Similar traits between them.  That’s the real value, so the more inputs you have here the better.

2. Everything you’re good at – your strengths

Again, we’re brainstorming here so list everything.  Are you good at cooking?  Explaining things to people? Are you great at keeping your house organized?  Are you a great manager?  This is a good opportunity to involve your family, close friends and colleagues – ask them what you’re good at; often they have a valuable perspective that you can’t see yourself.

3. Everything you’re not so good at – your weaknesses

We all have weaknesses, or things that are NOT our strengths. Be honest here – you will find that often these align with unhappiness. Think about times when you’re unhappy: do you hate doing paperwork? Maybe it’s because you’re not very good at administrative tasks.  Are you uncomfortable in social situations? Maybe “being social” isn’t a strength of yours. BE HONEST in this exercise. And ask your family, friends and colleagues for their insights.

4. Every little thing that’s ever made you happy in your life

Happiness is one of the most important things in life. Who doesn’t want to live a happy life?  If you want to find your passion – something that will allow you to be great – then it must also make you happy. Think about every little thing that you’ve ever done that makes you happy. Spending time with your kids, tearing apart a computer and putting it back together, running miles and miles until you can’t run anymore.  Your list of “happy things” will help you figure out first what it is you DON’T want to do; then, you work with this list to identify a career that incorporates one or more of these things in a big way.

5. Companies and/or people you want to work for

Have you always wanted to work for a particular company? Or how about that woman you’ve read about in the WSJ and respect so much. Make a list of all these companies and people.  This will help guide your search after you’ve made all your other lists.  This is one of the first steps in crafting your Relationship Action Plan. Don’t forget to do this one – it will guide you into action.

Making these lists is just the first step of a new system I’ve developed: A Simple 5-Step Program to Land Your Dream Job in 2010. The webinar package is currently $99.95 in our store, but subscribers to KeithFerrazzi.com’s Tip of the Week – and their friends – can purchase it for $29.95 using a special link provided in this week's Tip of the Week.

You can get this special price of $29.95 too by becoming a member of KeithFerrazzi.com!

I’ve found this exercise alone has offered more immediate insight into my passions than any other.  But these lists are only the first step – there are four more steps you need to take in order to realize your dream.

I teach them all in this exclusive webcast, which I originally gave to the Stanford Graduate School of Business. If you are serious about making a change in your life, I really encourage you to download this package.  It’ll be the best $30 you’ve spent all year.

100% Money-Back Guarantee

Not only am I offering this package to you at a steep discount, I’m also making it RISK FREE for you! That means that if you are not 100% satisfied, I’ll buy it back from you (with one condition: you tell me what I can do to make it better!).

This process has helped many successful people discover their passion and their path to greatness. I want it to do the same for you. We’re all in this together.

Product Details

In the “A Simple 5-Step Program to Land Your Dream Job in 2010” package, you’ll get:

• The one-hour video tutorial from me (in Windows, Mac & iPhone versions)
• The audio-only version of the download, so you can take me on your commute on CD or in your iPod
• A NEWLY REVISED version of the Lifeline Group Launch Kit
• An offer of exclusive Charter Membership to KeithFerrazzi.com.

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