New Year's Resolutions and how to keep them!

I do believe that New Year's Eve is my second favorite holiday (after Thanksgiving). It's a big day of celebration, requires no gift shopping, no real food preparation and you can make a lot of noise! The best part though, is starting a brand new year. It just fills me with anticipation. What wonderful things will happen in 2011? I don't know about you but I have big dreams! I want to take my Close to my Heart business to new heights, I want to double my team, share all the products in the brand new catalog (you should see them) with my customers and do lots of home parties because that's where I really feel at home (even though it's in your home)!

Personally I want to continue to preserve the memories of my own family through traditional scrapbooking and Studio J and take even more pictures than before!

So, while I was thinking about my goals I did some research and found some great tips for keeping those resolutions and thought maybe you'd like to hear about them too!

1) Keep your resolutions simple. Don't say that you're going to do 300 layout pages this year when realistically you'll be lucky to do 50. Be reasonable and take it easy on yourself. You can always do more!

2) Stick to one or two resolutions. More than that and you're setting yourself up for failure. What are your two most important goals for 2011? My important resolutions are to keep in contact with my customers and team members on a regular basis and to put my own family's pictures into the albums and pages I make for my business, killing two birds with one stone.

3) Tell people!! We all need a little accountability. I make sure I tell my goals to my family, my team members and my customers!! That's a lot of people helping me to keep on track.

4) Set up a reward system! Rewards for me are easy, more products to play with! When I make my specific number of connections with my customers, I get to buy myself a scrapbooking or stamping present!

5) Get a resolution buddy! Find a like minded person who can help you stick to your goal while you're helping her!

6) Make a specific plan. I'm in the process of setting up a schedule so that I can keep in contact with my customers on a regular basis. I am gathering photos and organizing them so when the right paper and layout idea pops up, I can just throw those pictures right on!

7) Keep your resolutions posted! Let's be real, most of us check in on our computers once a day AT LEAST (for some of us, we're actually glued to it). Take out a post it, put your resolutions on it and slap it on your monitor.

8) Track your progress. If you are trying to do a certain number of layouts or cards this year, make up a chart or have a place where you can keep track. I have a blog that is just for me, noone can see it but every day I post how many calls I've made, how many points I've earned towards the Hawaiian cruise I want to win, and how many layouts I've done.

9) Be nice to yourself. If your kid fell off his bike the first time you wouldn't tell him to throw in the towel and give up on bike-riding, right? Well, be encouraging to yourself like you would to him!

10) Take baby steps. Ever watch that movie, "What About Bob?" Hilarious film and in it, the obsessive-compulsive character, Bob, learns to help himself by doing everything in baby steps. You can do the same. If you want to make more cards this year, take little steps. Use January to get yourself prepared, find your papers, patterns, stamp sets and tools and put them all in one place so that you can begin in February. That month, make a plan to make 25 cards, do one a day. Baby steps!!

Okay, so that's it and now I would love to hear what your scrapbooking, cardmaking, papercrafting, stamping resolutions are!! Post them here on the comments!!