Daniel Decker

There are many ways to kick-start your new year and make it the best it can be.

• Chris Brogan talks about the significance of using 3 Words as your guiding pillars for focus.
• Jon Gordon talks about One Word and The Road to Success (Vision and Alignment).
• Michael Hyatt talks about yet another point that I think is important in Creating Margin in Your Busy Life.

There are plenty more.

For me, I’m implementing and blending a lot of these strategies (and several others) to align my direction this year. I’ve created One Word that will serve as an umbrella, so to speak, to help as a guide. Then 3 words underneath it to help clarify some of my goals.

That one word is RESIDUAL.

And the three words underneath it are: Impact, Opportunities, and Income.

And my defining statement which includes them all is:
I want this to be the year that I do a better job at creating RESIDUAL impact, opportunities and income.

Impact
If you want to make a difference, it’s much better to do so in a way that can grow beyond your initial efforts. That requires being more strategic, thinking smarter and laying a foundation for sustainability that is setup to gain perpetual motion and ongoing success. I want that more for myself, for the initiatives I am involved with and for my clients.

Opportunities
If you want to create, build and grow… you must be proactive about it. The challenge that many of us face is being too reactive (responding to the world around us) instead of being intentional and creating it. I want 2011 to be a year that I focus more on creating opportunities and not just one-off’s but opportunities that feed back into impact ongoing.

Income
This is a no brainer. If you want to do big things you need to have a way to fund it right? And what better way to fund something than to have a reoccurring revenue stream that builds residually off of your efforts… a stream that isn’t limited by your time but can compound and grow based off of your expertise. This applies to me and those who I work with… looking for ways to generate ideas that feed the machine and do so ongoing long after the initial development is complete.

And if I do a good job, I’ll end up with more margin in my busy life. : )

What about you? Do you have a word or combination of words that is helping you shape your year?

Related posts:

1. Improve Your Relationships and Make Someone’s Day with this 13 Letter Word
2. HAVE TO vs GET TO
3. Perfection, Permission, and Other P Words You Don’t Need