Most of us set goals yearly, at the turn of the year – calling them resolutions. We normally break these resolutions within a couple of weeks, whether it be giving up smoking or going to the gym three times a week. I didn’t set any this year, probably because I knew i’d break them as soon as they were set with a three week holiday to Australia only days away. Now I’m back from Australia I got thinking about any worthwhile resolutions I could set myself. I have a few outside of poker, namely to start running on the beach in the mornings and visiting the gym, but I also have a few to do with poker, and I’d encourage you to do the same.

Setting goals in every aspect of life is very important, and poker is no different. One aspect of it that could be argued is different is that you cannot base these goals on results. The variance in poker is so extreme that to do so would be folly, however goals need not be results based.

I’ve written about setting aside time for poker before, and I feel like a bit of a broken record in mentioning it again, but it is key. I have plenty of friends who tell me regularly that they are so busy, and don’t have time for this and that. The majority of them do have time, they just have bad time management skills and schedule their lives poorly.

Get a diary and plan your days, write down everything you need to do, and try and find a time slot for it. This will help you see when you have free time for poker. When scheduling your time, remember to include some downtime. I’ve found in the past that when I’m relaxing, I’m not really relaxing, but sitting in front of my computer answering emails, chatting on msn or browsing websites. This is one of my goals, to schedule time to answer emails etc. It isn’t as important for me to schedule playing poker, as I do it most days, but I do need to make more of my spare time.

I have also decided to schedule in time for watching training videos. I have a membership for two training sites and I have hardly watched a video in a year. I don’t know it all, far from it, the game is constantly evolving and we should be doing our best to make sure we stay ahead of the curve. If you’re not a member of a training site – join one. If you are, make sure you’re getting your money’s worth!

As I mentioned, in setting poker goals you cannot be results based. There is no point in saying “I want to win $100k this year, that is my goal”. A better goal would be to play in $200k worth of buy ins during that year, meaning that if you ran at 50% ROI you would achieve the results based goal. If chasing a volume score doesn’t get you motivated then perhaps you need to form some kind of competition with some poker friends.

Pocketfives.com run a series of leaderboards with points counting from most of the major sites. Set yourself a goal there if it helps. Top of your city/state/country, maybe even just top ten. Whatever, if it helps to motivate you, it works. Personally I would like to be ranked in the top 100 on Pocketfives and envisage that I will be by the end of March, if not before. Little things like this can really spur you on and get you playing more and better poker.

One important aspect to remember when setting goals is to make them achievable. There would be no point in me setting a goal of winning 3 bracelets at this years WSOP, or getting my golf handicap down to 5 (I actually don’t know which one is less likely). Similarly it would be foolish to set a goal of playing in 5000 MTTs for the year if you have a full time job, a wife and 3 kids.

In February I plan on buying in to $100k worth of tournaments. I think this is a good goal. The most I have managed before is $63k in October last year. I know I can get to $100k, but it will also be a small struggle. In addition to making sure you don’t set your goals too high it’s important they’re not too low either. Only time will tell if this particular one of my goals fits the criteria I’ve described.

Ok, I’m off to the gym….