One thing you can do which is bound to help you clarify your goals and make them happen sooner is to form a goal-setting group. This is a small group of people who get together at regular intervals (at least once a quarter, though it could be monthly) with each person having an hour to outline their goals and what they are going to do by the next meeting to achieve them. Other members of the group can ask questions about the goals.

Why does this make your goals clearer and speed them up? Firstly, talking about your goals to other people makes them more real. Going on the record about your goals in front of others engages the human desire for consistency which (according to Robert Cialdini in his excellent book "Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion" is one of our main psychological drivers. Putting our goals in writing engages this drive to some extent, but actually telling people about them - especially when you know that you're going to have to tell them what you've done to achieve the goals in three months time.

Secondly, talking about your goals - and especially having to answer questions about them - will expose whether you are expecting to do too much in the available time, or whether you are underestimating what you could achieve. It makes you 'get real' about what you were thinking of doing, particularly as other people may ask questions that you would never have thought of yourself.

Finally, it gives you support. It can feel like a lonely world out there, particularly if you work for yourself. It's good to have other people around who you can share your hopes and fears with, but who have no stake in you either changing or staying the same (unlike your friends, who on the whole like you the way you are - that's why they are your friends). It's a great way of 'depth networking' - of getting to know people better through engaging in a common purpose.

How big should the group be? You could do it on a 'buddy' system with one other person - I think having at least three people in the group will make it more interesting and bring in more variety of different perspectives. To give an hour for each person's goals, you're probably looking at a maximum group size of seven. From personal experience, the group is likely to last longer if you're all in the same geographical area to cut down on the amount of travel involved.

You could have a virtual group that 'meets' via conference call or web forum but I believe you will get a greater feeling of involvement, commitment and support from face-to-face meetings.

It is a good idea though to use a free web forum such as Yahoo Groups (http://www.groups.yahoo.com) to keep in touch in between meetings. We use Yahoo for our group because it allows you to upload files, you can choose to have new messages sent to you by email or you can read them on the web, and it has a built-in calendar.

Let me know if you start a goal-setting group - perhaps we can link up, share our successes and start a movement!