Many people set goals at the start of a new year but why wait if you are ready to take control of your future and your career destiny now.  Resolutions are powerful tools and can take your career to the next level but most people get stuck on the follow-through of the goal and it turns into a dust covered wish over time.

If you want action, you need a plan! Goal setting is the best way to turn resolutions into results. It’s time to define your objectives in practical and measurable terms so you can hold yourself accountable and get the results you really want.

First, you need to identify what you want and then you need to develop a road map to get there. Research tells us that when we set measurable goals, we are more likely to achieve them.

The SMART system is a very useful strategy for goal setting. Define your goals to meet the following criteria:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Achievable

R – Realistic

T – Timely

In order to be specific, achievable and realistic, your goals need to be concrete, concise, and attainable. Instead of saying – “I want a new job this year.” You need to specify “I want a higher paying job with more challenges in the marketing industry that allows me to play to my strengths.” Now you are ready to work towards getting something very precise and this focus will help in your job search process.

You must frame your goals in such a way that you can measure your progress. For example, plan to keep a log of the informational interviews you have conducted, network contacts that you have developed, and job applications that you have made in your field. If you can measure it then you can reflect on the progress you have made and ramp it up accordingly if you have not yet achieved the end goal.

Give yourself a reasonable time frame to achieve your goal. It’s unrealistic to suggest that you will land your perfect job in a week. So, break it down into smaller baby steps and focus on adding 5 new network contacts within a month, attending 2 professional development events in the next few weeks, and participating in a job shadow experience before the end of the summer, for example. It’s gratifying to accomplish short term as well as long term goals so break things up into smaller and more easily attainable goals along the way towards your ultimate goal.

Keep notes, a journal, a spreadsheet, or some sort of tracking system to hold yourself accountable so you can track your progress and reward yourself for all of your accomplishments along the way. Check in with yourself regularly or tap into your resource team and ask someone in your circle of trust (a coach, a friend or colleague, etc.) to be your accountability master if you believe that you won’t be strict enough yourself. Having someone check in with you might just be the nudge you need to move forward.

So get out there and set some SMART goals!

Quintessential Jill-of-all-trades, Jo Laurie has experienced many career changes in her life. As a young student in her native England, Jo was pushed into the empirical sciences in school and specialized early on in chemistry, physics, and math. She is dyslexic and these disciplines were meant to help her focus on her strengths with numbers and equations.

Jo was successful in the sciences and in the British system under Margaret Thatcher; she was paid to attend university (free tuition plus a stipend) and earned a BSc (Hons), a degree with honors in Psychology. While Jo was stimulated intellectually, she yearned for a more creative outlet. So she left England and headed to New York City to reinvent herself and test-drive a new world. Read Full Story

For 25 years Carol Covin enjoyed a career in the computer industry as a software engineer but in 1997 something significant happened that would change the course of her career dramatically. Carol’s colleague, with inoperable stomach cancer, found an obscure cancer treatment developed by a scientist in the late 1970s. It was held by a private scientific library the scientist endowed to hold his papers before he died in 1986. Carol’s friend followed the scientist’s suggested cancer treatment protocol and his 30-pound tumor was gone in six weeks. Read Full Story

According to Keith Ferrazzi, a networking expert and author of: Never Eat Alone, you should build your resource team before you need it. Nothing is worse than the image of the unemployed individual desperately taking business cards at a professional conference in order to find a job. The reality is that you should start connecting with people and building your community long before you need anything.

We know that networking is not just about finding a job but building your circle of friends, mentors, and colleagues as part of your personal Board of Directors. If you are in a job now or developing a business you should be thinking ahead about the ways you want to move forward and how the people on your resource team might play a role.  Building trusting relationships takes time and earning the opportunity to ask your network for support is not instantaneous, or a given.

Former President, Bill Clinton was famous for keeping index cards with notes about each new person he met daily. His forward thinking attitude helped him build a strong network even while in college as he planned for his future political career. Known for his ability to connect with people and form a personal bond, Clinton utilized his index card system to recall important facts about people he met.

I encourage my students and clients to write notes on the back of business cards they acquire to remember specifics about people. This can be especially helpful after an interview when you are composing a thank you note.  And when it comes to stewarding your network, you should write thank you notes and follow-up with phone calls intermittently to show your sincere appreciation, even when you are not seeking their assistance.

As an experiment, start logging the new people you meet each day and jot down a few notes about them on an index card, à la Bill Clinton. At the end of the week reflect upon the number of new contacts you have made and take stock of these new members of your community. From the UPS delivery person to the new client at work, this is how you grow your network one person at a time.

I believe it takes a village to develop a career in the professional world and the first step is to surround yourself with people you respect and trust. The next step is to be conscious of how you can pay-it-forward and help others in return. We introduce new relationships into our lives every day whether consciously or not, and having the awareness that you can help others is not only good for the karmic circle of life, it’s just the right thing to do.

Angela Jia Kim, CEO and Founder of Om Aroma & Co. and Co-Founder of Savor the Success has built her business on the Give, Give, Get rule when networking. Nothing is more of a turn off than someone who is in it just for themselves. When you are a genuine networker and operate from a position of authenticity people are more apt to help you. After all, business is all about human interaction so considering how you can help others will increase your personal capital.

Paying it forward is not just applicable to networking.  I have interviewed 100+ women across the country for my career transition book and the majority of them talk about their commitment to giving back. Whether it is volunteering your time and expertise or donating a percentage of targeted proceeds towards a worthy cause, generosity and the spirit of community is being celebrated on a grand scale.

Careers are a life long journey and we’ve all had people that were instrumental in helping us along the way in good times and in bad. Make an effort to be conscious about how you are helping others because what goes around really does come around. It may require some new mindsets, behaviors and strategies, but at the most basic level, all it requires is that you make a choice. By giving back, you just might be a role model for someone else and help make the pay-it-forward behavior the norm for everyone.