So what’s the point of having a theme for your annual goals, anyway?  You already set the goals… now you have to do more work to wrap them in a bow???

I first learned of this concept of having a theme for the year, from Chris Brogan’s blog.

• Chris Brogan’s 3-word theme for 2011. Reinvest. Package. Flow. (Read the post to get the explanation.)
• Chris Brogan’s 3-word theme for 2010. Ecosystems. Owners. Kings. (Read the post to get the explanation.)
• Chris Brogan’s 3-word theme for 2009: Equip. Armies. Needles. (Read the post to get the explanation.)

My accountability buddy Shannon Bynes adopted this approach in 2010, and found it useful.

So this year – I’m doing the same with my annual goals.

Why Have a Theme? Why Limit All Your Goals to 3 Words?

• Focus.
  There is incredible power in focus.
  We all try to do ENTIRELY TOO MUCH.
  It not only leads to burnout, but it also leads to mediocrity.
  AND, it causes us to work on fighting the latest fire (doing the urgent, instead of the important).
  .
• Simplicity:
  For those of you / us who have 10 goals…
  How realistic is it that you remember all 10, on any given day?
  And how realistic is it that you remember the details of any of them, of there are 10 goals dancing around in your head?
  Narrowing your year down to 3 goals, makes you realize that SOME OF THOSE GOALS JUST DON’T FIT INTO YOUR THEME.

  (That’s a hint to defer them to next year.)

  There’s an analogy of a professional clown juggling at the circus.
  You can keep adding things for him to juggle…
  One at a time.
  But every clown has a breaking point.
  At a certain number, ALL the items he’s juggling (not just the newest one) will fall down.

  Think of your goals that way.  And realize that you have a breaking point, at which all your goals will fall down.

The theme I decided on, after setting my 2011 goals, and thinking about them for a few weeks, is…

(DRUM ROLL)

VITAMINS –> VALUE –> VELOCITY

• Vitamins:
  Doing a little bit every day, like taking vitamins, allows excellence to become a habit.
  Rather than doing a huge amount, then slacking off for long periods of time.
  It is really important for me to master the consistency habit in 2011.

  Vitamins are so easy to take, some of them are actually delicious, and they have IMMENSE benefits.

  So Vitamins to me indicates: A little effort every day, and A lot of value delivered over time.

• Value:
  The word VALUE is really important to me.
  But in this case, not value for me, but value delivered to OTHERS.
  2010 was a year in which I sought to grow my Internet Marketing business.
  But my focus was more on “what to do that would make me money” than it was on giving overwhelming and unique value to people, consistently.

  That focused changed in the latter half of 2010.
  As did my faith in the fact that no matter how close to the edge of the precipice we get, God would never let my family fall over.
  Once I got to that point of comfort, I started creating more value for people.   As reflected on this blog… and my 2010 accomplishments.

  So I seek to provide real value people.  And I know compensation will eventually come.
  In the meantime, I will be anxiety-free about compensation… and provide value with no strings attached.
  .

• Velocity:
  This word indicates forward motion to me.
  I included it to drive home the point that:
  - Taking my vitamins is an input…
  - Creating value is an output…
  - And the result is increased velocity toward my purpose, and calling.
  - Velocity means gradually increasing momentum, increasing speed, toward my goal.
  - It puts emphasis on doing the journey well, in a constantly improving fashion
  - Rather than putting the focus on “GETTING THERE”.

  .

• Something else that is important in 2011, is THE POWER OF LESS (see book by Leo Babauta).
  I don’t know if that will make it into my theme, but it’s very important.

  December 2010 was a period in which I focused on at most 6 things on any given day.
  - The same 6 things, day-in, day-out.
  - My stress was greatly reduced,
  - My focus was greatly increased, and
  - I felt like a laser.  I made big impact in very specific areas.  Areas that are important to me.

  I might end up changing “VELOCITY” to “TUNNELVISION”.
  (That messes up my alliteration though!)

If you could come up with a theme for 2011, for yourself…

What would it be?