Yup, you heard me right. Don't make any New Year's Resolutions for your blog. In fact I would urge you to avoid making New Year's resolutions of any kind. Why? Simply because, resolutions are nothing other than the hollow echo of the things we wish or hope to have happen. They are nebulous, tentative and generally without direction. The real key to having a more successful blog is to practice the art of setting goals.

Do you really want blog success? Do you want your blog to grow and prosper? Then the key to your blog success is to set goals to work towards in conjunction with a plan that will get you there. There are things you can do to achieve a more successful blog, but simply stating a resolution will not make it happen. Learn the secret of how to set goals and reach them...

Follow up:

There are 3 simple things you must understand before you can set and achieve your goals:

1. - Understand the nature of goals in relation to reality. Goals, by themselves are simply wishful thinking. You are a creature who is trapped in the here and now. You cannot go forward or backward in time, but you have been blessed with the ability to imagine the future. A goal is a figment of your imagination. Nothing less and nothing more.

2. - Goals are only useful if they give you a present focus. It is necessary to focus daily on your goals for blog success. If you fail to focus on your goals for a successful blog, on a day-to-day basis, you are not likely to take the steps necessary to reach your desired outcomes for your blog.

3. - Goals should be quantifiable. Nebulous, intangible, unmeasurable goals lack definition and concrete meaning. A goal should be something that you can easily track your progress towards in some obvious way. You cannot plan a strategy towards a future event if you have no way to measure your progress.

Now you know why I say that New Year's Resolutions are not very useful for your blog success. You need to learn and practice the art of setting goals. Here are your steps to success:

1. - Define concrete goals and set a deadline for reaching them. Don't just say, "I want more subscribers to my blog.", instead say, "I want to increase my subscriber base by 50% or 300 subscribers by the end of the year", this is a more tangible goal. Something that you can track your progress towards.

2. - Formulate a plan to achieve your goals. What steps are you going to take to make it to your goal? You might need to start with researching techniques that you can employ, find things that you think will work for you and set out a plan to employ those techniques in making your blog goal a reality.

3. - Write down your goals, your plans for attaining them and your deadlines. Post them somewhere that they will be visible daily. It is also helpful to post a record of your progress. Remember you are a creature of the here and now. You must focus your mind and your actions on a daily basis to make your imagined success a reality.

4. - Don't let failure of the fear of failure stop you. It is always possible that you may fail. But even if you don't completely reach your goals, you will always achieve at least a partial success, as long as you have followed the steps above. You may be trapped in the present, your future may only be imagined, but you are also blessed with the ability to look back and learn from your mistakes. Failure is your teacher, it will show you what doesn't work. Your determination to continue setting goals, planning your strategy and pressing on will lead you and your blog to success.

Obviously, you can use the art of setting goals to achieve success in many areas of your life, not just for your blog success. Stating resolutions is truly no more than wishful thinking. But if you set concrete goals, prepare a targeted plan; focus daily on your goals, your plan and your progress, you will succeed. And even if the world conspires to trip you up and you fall somewhat short of success, you will be that much closer than if you hadn't tried at all. You can just pick yourself up and start again, knowing that your success is much nearer than before.

Blog Angel wishes you and your blog every success in the New Year!

Learn more about setting goals:

• The Goal Setting Guide
• myGoals.com
• SettingYourGoals.com
• Top Acheivement.com