You learned to walk by being persistent, getting up every time you fell down and trying to walk again. Recapture the persistence you had as a toddler.

Don’t get distracted. Remember Aesop’s story of the race between the tortoise and the hare? The hare raced ahead, taunting the tortoise and, thinking he had the best of him, stopped before crossing the finish line (not meeting the goal) and was distracted (took a nap). The tortoise, keeping the goal in mind (finishing the race), kept plodding along in small steps until he reached the finish line. Be like the tortoise; just keep going toward your goal no matter what. Consistent follow-through will lead to success.

Be creative with how you can meet your goals. Sometimes you’ll be able to accomplish several goals at once and sometimes you’ll have to make a hard choice. Let’s say your goals are to spend more time with your family, do life drawing and attend three industry-related networking meetings a month. In the case of spending time with your child and life drawing, you might go to the zoo and work on two of your goals at once while you teach your child how to draw the animals. And you can do life drawing at the networking meetings too.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get motivated and write up my goals for 2005.

Pamela Kleibrink Thompson will be moderating a panel called BYOB: Be Your Own Boss on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2005, for the Los Angeles ACM SIGGRAPH chapter meeting. Learn about legal issues, business plans, marketing, publicity and branding, recruiting and how to survive and thrive at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in the Barnsdall Art Park at 4800 Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. Social hour begins at 6:30. The program starts at 7:30.

Thompson will also be speaking on goal setting at the Los Angeles Women in Animation chapter meeting on January 27 at Klasky Csupo in Hollywood.