Imposing your own goals on team members is one of the fastest ways to lose their commitment.

Goal setting is a collaborative process. The role of the leader is to provide coaching to ensure everyone is in line with overall team goals. Make sure any online collaboration tools or other technology you use to support the goal-setting process doesn’t take the place of crucial in-person conversations.

Everything in life is a choice.

How do you make your choices? What are they based on?

When we are clear about what is most important to us, we can make choices that are aligned with what we want in our lives. Guiding principles help keep us focused throughout the year and give us a foundation to determine the choices we make every day. It is through those daily choices that we build our lives.

Here's a quick visualization exercise you can try to help you create your guiding principles. Journal about the following:

In a recent post, I mentioned that we all respond to our environment in a natural way. Sometimes our responses produce effective, long-term results. Other times, our responses are short-term and reactive. I compared two stances in life - a Problem-Reacting Stance and an Outcome-Creating stance.

If you have been following my last several posts and are interested in a more guided approach to creating your best year yet, check out a product we just launched - The Ultimate Goal Setting Guide.