Communications Blog

A few years ago, community and social media leader Chris Brogan developed a meme to help him set goals for the new year:

"Over the last few years, I’ve practiced something I call 'my 3 words,' where I come up with three words that I use as guidance for how I should conduct my efforts in the year to come. I set goals around these three words. I build deadlines and projects around these words."

His 2010 words are Ecosystems, Owners and Kings. Read his post to learn what those words represent for him.

Among many others, the queen of nonprofit social media – Beth Kanter – has picked up on Chris's meme and picked Networked, Generosity, Full of Life as her 2010 Three Words.

Here's Chris's advice in choosing your words:

"Pick three words that help you the way a lighthouse helps a ship in a storm. Give yourself a word that guides you towards a powerful new opportunity, and that keeps you focused on what comes of this year. Use these words as starting points for tangible goals, SMART goals that can be measured and have dates to accomplish tasks by. These words sit above the actual goals, and set your guiding principles in place."

Could this be a useful exercise for your work? What are your three words for 2010? Please share with us below:

Comments

Posted by: Tasha Hamon |January 7, 2010 12:59 PM

What a lovely exercise. My three words for this year are explore, delight and intuition. I am writing them above my desk now to encourage myself to pay attention to them, even before I get to using them in a deeper planning process.

As a facilitator and coach, I'm delighted to see you offering this kind of values and intuition-based exercise. (Hmmm, there are two of my words showing up in a different context already.) So often it is these kinds of foundations that make all the difference in moving lives and organizations more strongly onto their most powerful, truest paths.