First, a confession: I’m enamored with Bear Grylls. This super-tough action man from the TV show Man vs. Wild can survive anything, and I mean anything. Last week he ate a live camel spider, crossed the Sahara on foot and climbed inside a dead camel to ... well, I won’t go too deeply into that. It was horrifying, and I’ll save you the pain.

Why do I love Bear? Because he’s a man with a plan. He knows you can’t survive any situation - jungle, desert, workaday job in a newsroom - without a goal in mind. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re only bumbling around in the wild.

That’s why today in the second installment of the Six-Week Business Action Plan, I’ll be your own back-country guide to developing a personal goals statement.

Back when I started freelancing, I counted every sale a success. And it is, when you’re starting out. But you’ve got to start thinking strategically about how to increase sales, get a better job, reach bigger magazines.

First of all, determine how much you need to earn to A) pay the rent, and B) improve upon last year’s takings. If you need to earn $50,000 to cover all your bills, you know you need to bring in an average of $4167 every month. If you can’t cut it through freelancing alone (ugh, and more power to those who can), think of other ways to augment your income, and put those sources on your goals list.

Then consider career advancements, like magazines you’ve always wanted to write for, or fields you’ve always wanted to cover. Maybe your goal is to quit working your part-time proofreading gig and move into a full-time copy editing job. If you’ve always wanted to write a book or screenplay, now is the time to jot it down.

Brainstorm for a while, jot everything down on index cards and then start to sort and pile. If one of the goals no longer fits in with your shiny new values, out it goes. Now, with the rest, divide into short-term goals and long-term goals. You can break them out into three lists: yearly, semi-yearly and monthly.

Your finished statement should look something like:

Overall Goals for 2008

1. Attend more conferences
2. Put in more face time with editors
3. Complete book

Six-Month Goals

1. Break into five new markets through contacts at conferences
2. Ask editors for a raise
3. Complete book proposal

Monthly Goals

1. Earn $4167 for a total of $50,000 per year
2. Write book chapter
3. Meet with one editor

You can even break down your goals into a weekly list, and use it as a checklist. If you haven’t accomplished everything on it by the end of day Thursday, you know what you're going to spend Friday doing.

You may even reevaluate the possibility of realistically achieving your goals. Yes, you've got to shoot for something, but don't be stubborn. You never know what will happen in that 12-month period. If you receive an offer for your dream job, quit freelancing and figure out how your new gig falls into a new set of goals.

Once you’ve completed this exercise, the nebulous idea of “doing better” will seem much more attainable. What’s more, you’ll have the bones of your action plan in place and will be ready to move onto phase three: the year in review. It will help you hone in on what worked and what didn’t from 2007 so you can do better next time.

Come back next week for more – and tell me how you’re doing!

P.S.

Everybody have their values statement tucked safely in their new Personal Action Plan notebook? If not, back up a sec and read last week’s installment, which tells you how to know when to accept or reject a job or assignment.