Everyone’s starting to talk about their New Year’s resolutions…lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking, get out of debt, and find a new job are the ones I hear most frequently. And while I think that New Year’s resolutions are a great idea in theory, I think that a lot of people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions because often the only criteria motivating the person to make the resolution is the time of year.

This year I made several really big changes in my life. Yet none of them happened overnight. Some took months to make, others took years, and one took more than a decade to come to terms with. But none of them were motivated by the time of year. They were motivated by a feeling that I could no longer continue in a situation under the current circumstances or by the fact that I wanted something and I wanted it sooner rather than later. Basically, my desire to change a situation was greater than my desire not to change it. There really wasn’t an “aha moment” or even a calculated plan in many cases…the changes happened because in my mind, they had to at one point or another.

The other thing about my changes was that few of them went smoothly and most had a “one step forward, two steps back” feel to them. But I was able to persevere because I didn’t link the changes to a time frame. With New Year’s resolutions, people often link them to a time frame and if the person can’t follow the timeline, they frequently abandon the new behavior before they can see the true results of their efforts.

So if one of your New Year’s resolutions is to find a new job, here are some suggestions for forgetting about the time of year and instead focusing on the long term change.

1. Don’t declare a New Year’s resolution; instead set a long-term goal with some interim milestones. If you know you would like to change jobs at some point in time or land a job as quickly as possible, commit to 5 things you could do over the next month to move towards that goal. That may mean setting up informational interviews, joining a professional association, becoming more active on social media sites, or starting your own job search group. Do something to move you closer to your goal.
2. Don’t create a defined time frame for achieving the goal. Forget the formulas about how long a typical job search lasts. There is no such thing as a typical job search. Think about nurturing existing relationships and building new ones to gather information, extend your professional visibility, and secure more interviews. Build relationships whenever you can…graciously accept a meeting whether it will occur next week or next month.
3. Don’t reset the clock when your progress towards your goal feels stagnant. Some weeks your search will feel like you are slogging through mud or sinking in quicksand. Other weeks will be more fruitful. A slow week doesn’t mean the market has tanked or everyone must be on vacation. Don’t give up during the slow times; instead use the downtime to focus on other aspects of your search such as improving your resume or creating a target list of companies to explore…keep on keeping on.
4. Don’t blame external factors for your inability to change; look inward to figure out why you can’t change just yet. It’s easy to blame a bad economy for your lack of progress. But often it’s our own insecurities that hold us back. Even when people want to find a new job or land a job when they don’t have one, it can still be hard. Maybe it’s fear of rejection, apprehension about taking a risk, or a feeling that maybe the grass really isn’t greener on the other side. It’s ok (and normal) to have these feelings. Explore them, deal with them and make decisions as to whether your desire to change exceeds these feelings at this point in time.
5. Cut yourself some slack if you don’t reach your goal as quickly as you would like to. We are all impatient at times. Yet the job market often doesn’t take this into account. In an employer’s market, searches tend to last a long time and it’s not unusual to go through several rounds of interviews over several months before a hiring decision is made. You can’t control every aspect of your search. Focus on what you can control and recognize that things might take longer than you would like.

Forget the one time resolution on January 1. Instead focus on contributing something towards your career each and every day…that’s what career management is all about. To your success in 2010 and beyond!