YEAR-END BUSINESS - PART 2 Set Your Goals & Action Plans Now (aka New Year’s Resolutions Suck!) December 26, 2011 See Part 1: Wind Up Income & Corporate Chores By Tom Dheere Voice Actor So, 2012 is just around the corner. Are you gonna make some half-hearted resolution at around 11:54 PM on New Year’s Eve, again?
In the voice over profession as well as in life, vague goals will get you vague results. Specific goals will get you specific results. If you truly want to make strides as a voice talent, you need to have:
YOUR MISSION Having a Mission (aka a Mission Statement ala Stephen Covey) and having Goals is not necessarily the same thing. Goals are focused; a Mission is broad. A Mission is your United States Constitution. It declares:
Writing a Mission is a challenge and takes time. It forces you to examine who you are and your values. Trust me, it’s worth it! YOUR GOALS Once you have the Mission in place, you have to set Goals to fulfill that Mission. The Goals must be specific and address five key areas in your voice over career. (Special thanks to Dan Duckworth of Voiceovers Unlimited for crafting them!). They are: 1. Finances/Cash Flow 2. Technique 3. Tools 4. Marketing 5. Health All of these areas must be developed for you to be a truly successful voice talent. Like a Mission, crafting Goals requires some serious thought and a thorough examination of how you want to be a part of the voiceover community. YOUR PLAN An Action Plan is critical! This is what you use to achieve those Goals on an incremental basis. Your Action Plan, like your Goals, is broken down into Dan Duckworth’s five key areas, but now they are more task-oriented and designed to help you develop a regimen. These tasks should be specific and strong. Tasks could (and should!) include things like,
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER This is difficult stuff! Any endeavor that is worthwhile should be. Don’t be afraid to fail. Actually, strike that. The only way you will fail is if you DON’T build a Mission, Goals, and a Plan. Break a leg and Happy New Year! ABOUT TOM ... Tom Dheere is a 15-year veteran of the voice over industry. He has narrated almost one thousand projects spanning every area of the industry, including commercials, audiobooks, and video games. His Good Karma Network (GKN) has an international following and has been the subject of numerous articles and features. Email: tom@tomdheere.com Web: www.tomdheere.com Good Karma Network: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GKN Your Daily Resource For Voice-Over Success
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Sincerely!
This succinct, helpful summary of the differences between mission statements and goals is extremely helpful.
Here's to the practical tools that actually work when it comes to bringing New Year's resolutions to life.
A **fantastic** tool for building a Mission Statement is at this link:
http://www.nightingale.com/mission_select.aspx
You fill in fields with this tool, and it creates your unique mission statement from your entries. For instance, the first fields are 5 positive characteristics about you and 5 actions you take to express them.
While using this tool still takes careful thought and a little time, you now have a structure for determining your mission statement. Also, you can save and edit your statement as your business changes.
Since the attainment of many of my goals depend on marketing my business, I also recommend the Action Worksheets in the GET CLIENTS NOW! book. You can download the worksheets at this link:
http://www.getclientsnow.com/worksheets.htm
Their usage is fully explained in the best book available on marketing, available at this affiliate link to Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/2z7248
Best wishes for your continued health, prosperity, and SUCCESS in 2012!
Cordially,
Karen Commins
http://www.KarenCommins.com