It's no surprise that I read lots of books about branding and marketing. But recently I have been reading a lot about personal branding, and how to apply the same effective branding and marketing tools that businesses use to your personal life.
One of the books that I've read is
Be Your Own Brand: A Breakthrough Formula for Standing Out from the Crowd, and one of the exercises in the book is really honing in on your personal values, and figuring out what, at the very core of my being, is important to me. Now, the book itself is kind of dry, but it does provide some other really neat introspective uses of practical business branding exercises.
As I was thinking about my New Years goals, I used the top seven values I deemed most important to me, and I categorized each goal within a value to make sure that I really truly was valuing it. So here are my goals for the year (some of which are the same from last year, just because I thought it was good practice then and will be good practice again). They are a bit aggressive, I know. But that's my style, isn't it.
Adventure (new experiences, challenge, excitement)
- Do something outdoorsy at least once a month
- Play one sport per month - and get good at one sport at least
- Visit another country and be engrained into their culture
Artistic Expression (drama, painting, literature)
- Search for a musical outlet (other than karaoke) so I can sing more - perhaps join a singing group
Contribution (desire to make a difference, to give)
- Hone my passion, find a worthwhile cause, and fight for it (other than college access because I do that through BUILD and College Summit)
Creativity (new ideas, innovation, experimenting)
- Finish Part 2 of my book, The Prediction
- Creatively write at least two times a month (every other week)
- Plan & throw more parties with cooking
Learning (growth, knowledge, understanding)
- Start a business, and then donate a majority of the profits to Troy Camp
- Gain clarity on future life plans regarding career and personal
- Apply to be a Rap Director for College Summit
Quality (excellence, high standards, minimal errors)
- Spend more time with my family
- Eat healthier - take out transfats from my diet, replace regular chocolate with dark chocolate
- Eat less salt
- Reconcile finances on a set date monthly - make sure to keep on top of my finances
- Reserve at least 2 hours a week to research and buy a condo
Wisdom (desire to understand life, to exercise sound judgment)
- Find a new church that i want to go to every week
- Grow up - upgrade myself to adult status
Work-related New Years Goals- Be more explicit - talk about my process
- Think of my whole audience, not just one
Labels: Goals