My wife and I were dorky enough to spend part of our New Year's Day last month writing down some goals for 2007. (Thankfully, consistent blogging was not one of my goals, as this is my first posting since January 3rd!) The age-old practice of creating New Year's resolutions has become one of our societal laughing stocks, but goal-writing is such an important part of success. Aren’t they the same thing?

Almost everybody has heard of the study conducted of the 1979 graduates of the Harvard Business School MBA program. They were asked: "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Of these extremely bright people, only 16% had goals and only 3% of them had actually written them down. The long-term study found that the 3% of respondents who had written goals earned significantly more income during their careers than their counterparts. Of course, earnings are not the only measure of goal-writing success, but they are easier to count than most other measures ; )

So, even if you write down your resolutions, why do they tend to never come true? I think that most people aren't skilled at goal-writing. The SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Resourceful, Timed) acronym continues to be a great litmus test for goals, and most people are too vague or unrealistic with their expectations. They think that a major life change is possible without the proper foundation of discipline, resources and accountability.

The same is true for training seminars and trade shows. As one of my coworkers likes to say, “You can’t teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar.” I recently flew the sales team to Seattle for a couple of days of training. The true measure of that training investment could not be made at the conclusion of our meetings. It will take adoption, execution and results to know if it truly benefited the team. Keep that in mind as you attend marketing shows this year. Sure, you might hear a lot of great ideas from your counterparts, but if you don’t have the resources, influence or tools to implement them, didn't you just waste your time at that trade show?

This year, I decided I would work on my personal discipline and balance. After almost eight weeks of 2007, I’m now happy to see the snowball effects of my daily runs, family time, etc. Often, it’s not the major resolutions that make the difference in life. Like the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen (continual process improvement), it’s the little things repeated daily that mean a lot.