Writing a new year resolution is something a 4-years old can do; what Santa often get and elves have to work on by October. To peruse through it all year long, that will take a man with guts, bloods and tears.

1. You often get advice to write down challenging or pragmatic goals. Is there something wrong to this advice? It depends on the magnitude and the path you take. Most of the time, it will be something challenging or at times, fucking unrealistic. Should you halt your dream or continue to pursue it regardless of hindrances?

2. The key in achieving your goals is trying not to achieve your goals. What you did for your new year resolution are not goal(s), they are merely objectives. One need to differentiate between goal(s), visions and objectives. The fulfillment of goals which are usually aspired by stories with vividly painted imagination which is your vision. Now, everything is sweet but should an objective be sweet as well? Here is the turning point. Vision should be adjective-oriented while your objectives should be verb-oriented. That is usually the problem when building up your new year resolution.

3. The one biggest deep hole that many have failed to comprehend when working with their objectives is to take calculated risk as well as to disembark on economic risk. I don't mean economic risk as in macroeconomics or microeconomics in the open market. It is quite close to self-reflection of your own risk profile. Most will try to averse from taking risk or even to be in a situation where things are out of control. The moment you draft a new new year resolution with thoughts of having things in ceteris paribus, you are bound for failures and multiple disappointments and heartbreaks.

4. Learn to fail. Learning to fail allows you to understand parameters or variables which are working against your action(s). It is the continuous modelling of a paradigm to your own view or call for action, or even to societal's view and comprehension. Failure will teach you the most valuable essence of being successful; that is to be agile. Without agility, you will not even nudge any progress for anything in your new year resolutions list. Agility promotes self-consciousness and self-awareness which are essential in repositioning yourself and calling for a review on your set objectives. Repositioning may cause distraction no doubt but it is important in making judgment of each call regarding losses or gains in time quantum or magnitude of efforts. Secondly, repositioning enrich your database of experience in taking calculated risk.

5. Between Failing and Planning. A goal may stretch up to 10 year or even 20 years but objectives may change depending on situations and scenarios. Focus! One have to focus in their main goal and realign their objectives not only annually but quarterly depending on the sensitivity of each objective. Failing is part of the plan since there is no such thing as fixed plan. Probe your actions and gauge your ability as you move forward. Over-analyzing is not good - just measure your actions. By doing this, you will now have a good grasp of variables which affect your moves. It is time to drop ceteris paribus and go in meticulous details. Be proud. Failure elevate you to another level of planning and have better view of your crosshair on your goals.

6. Constructing your life. Planning of your individual goal(s) is very similar with planning in construction. Every planners have unique approach with different styling and school of thought. No one is wrong and it is wrong have one style fits all. The followings are some of the things you can adopt from construction planning in your individual goal planning.

6.1 Start with Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Breaking down your vision(s) and objectives into structured list. This will allow you to see if one action hits more than one objectives. One good move allows progress if your planning is Waterfall type. One good move will reduce the magnitude of efforts if your approach is the Monte Carlo circuit type. By doing so, you can see and prioritize and even allow for slacks and lags when rephasing a single category or in this case, a goal.

6.2 Your plan should be a close-end planning. This allows you to see your predecessor(s) and successor(s). Have a clear view of what you need to do in order to reach your goal. Instead of having annual vague objectives, it is best of have relationship(s) between objectives which clearly highlight the continuity of each achievement as you progress forward. Each objective should carry its own weight. Similar to research methodology, weightage helps a lot when you conduct your EFA prior to CFA.

6.3 Agility. Conventionally, construction planning involves a lot of agility when making calls after risk are identified. You have to move forward after gauging yourself and bridging away from underlying risk. If you are not groom to do so, stick to Agile Project Management technique. Build up an inventory of your abilities. Stage up your sprint, use your inventory by listing the actions needed and time available. Squeeze, sprint and battle it uphill.

6.4 Risk. It is something hard to comprehend as it is intangible. Nevertheless, there are measuring scales and tools when reviewing risks. Knowing and identifying risks should be the major component for each goal. If you don't understand how you achieved your goal(s), it is likely you will not able to survive long. The wealth of knowledge you accumulated as you are reaching your goals is the only investment you have in order to sustain your goal(s) or to leap forward with bigger goals.

7. I hope this will help you with your new year resolution. Always plan at the middle of the year. Allow yourself to study the goal for 6 months before execution.

8. Don't write; act! Remember, a good way to achieve your goal is to have it 80% on paper (planning) and 20% execution (sweat, blood and tears).