Happy New Year my loyal readers.  I hope you all had a happy and prosperous holiday season.

It is the 4th day into 2011 and I feel amazing. 2010 was a great year for me personally and professionally. I accomplished many of the things that I set out to do and was pleased with how it ended.

As you may have noticed the appearance of the blog has changed. I wanted to shake things up a little and give the site a new feel by giving it a new look (what do you guys think?)

Along with the look, some of the content will also be changing. Not too drastically because I am aware that too many changes all at once can sometimes be a bad thing. However, one of the changes I am making is a good one. I  will be starting a weekly series called “Spotlight Latino” where I will post a blog every Wednesday featuring issues/topics about the Latino community.

This weekly post will  focus on anything from Latino history to Latino writers, musicians, artists, politicians, businessess, activists, or individuals that are or have contributed to or have positively impacted our culture. It will also focus on individuals that are doing things in their local communities. This will be a collaborative initiative, meaning that if you know or hear of a latino/a doing big things shoot me an email so that I can profile them. There are many Latinos who are doing great things and this series is my way of applauding and acknowledging them. 

Personally, I ended 2010 with a great feeling of accomplishment. For this new year, I have another set of goals set for myself and I am eager to get started working on them. The first of which was re-vamping the blog. I also want to spend a lot more time writing because the more you write the better you become. I have many other goals that I won’t list here but I am preparing myself mentally on how best to achieve them. Ideas are great but if you have no plan they become pointless.

For most of us, it is easy at the start of a new year to make resolutions of all the things that we want to do. However, even those with the best intentions of accomplishing their goals sometimes get sidetracked. I have fallen victim to that on occasion. There are a few things that I’ve learned to help keep me on track when working towards my goals and I want to share them with you.

First, write down all of your goals for the year. Take an hour of your day lock yourself in your home office, your bedroom, the bathroom (if you have to) and make a list of the things that you want to do. They can be small goals like cleaning the house, meditating, going to the gym or they can be bigger goals like taking a vacation, starting a new project or business, or making a career move. Whatever they may be the important thing is that you write them down. You have to be able to visualize it in order to make it a reality.

Secondly, once you have written your goals,  list them from easiest to accomplish to most difficult. Doing this will help you set realistic time frames for each thing that you want to do. If one of your goals is to clean/re-organize your house, this is fairly easy when compared to starting a new business.

After you have listed your goals from easiest to most difficult, decide on a start and completion date for each. If you set dates, you give yourself adequate time to focus, plan and accomplish your goals one at a time.

Most people make tons of resolutions and set many goals for themselves and then try to do them all at once. When you put that much pressure on yourself you don’t give yourself the appropriate time and commitment necessary to accomplish each individual goal. This leads to either mediocre results  or not completing the goal at all.

I have found that establishing timeframes helps to keep you on track. If you make a conscious commitment to achieving your goals you will see that you will stick to the dates you have set for yourself.

If you follow these basic steps by this time next year you just may be a successful entrepreneur. You just need a vision, a plan, focus, and commitment.

In 2011 make  your dreams your reality. It’s the dawn of a new day!