It’s almost difficult for me to imagine, but the fact is that January 2010 is part of the history books (and February is almost half gone). It was just a couple of months ago that I started my planning for the year 2010. During that planning process I set numerous goals and objectives for myself this year.

One goal was to obtain some high quality internet marketing coaching, and I’ve done that. A second goal was to attend a live internet marketing event, and I accomplished that at the end of January when I attended the Niche Affiliate Marketing Seminar in Atlanta.

Understanding The 2010 Objectives

Now, my objectives for these two things were quite clear. For the coaching my objective was to set my sights a little higher and interact with someone who could really help me focus down and create a product that would be central to my business, sort of a benchmark product that would form the center piece of my internet marketing funnel for my business at MasonWorld.com.

My objective for attending the NAMS conference was simply to get to know some of the internet marketers that I respect. People like Lynn Terry, Bob the Teacher, Nicole Dean, Scott Tousignant.  These are some of the people that I want to model my business after. The best way for me to do that is actually to meet them in person and spend some time with them. (Just a note: there are a couple of others that I respect that did not attend NAMS…)

Bigger Business Goals

Of course, these are just two small steps on the road to what I intend to accomplish in 2010.

Quite frankly, the major business goals that I’ve set for myself in 2010 can seem overwhelming at times. As most of you know, I’ve got what I consider a “day job” that I work from 8:00 to 5:00 at a large electronics company in Dallas.  In that job, I’m a manager of numerous people and projects with multiple budgets that I have to maintain.

I do my internet marketing at night. So, it’s very important for me to stay focused. That’s one of the things that my internet marketing coach is helping me with. But, sometimes that’s just not enough. As tough as she is on me, sometimes I need a little more. So, this year I did something I think is kind of cool.  I got myself a coffee cup.

My Coffee Cup

Let me explain.

Every morning when I get up the first thing I do is make a cup of coffee in my Keurig single cup coffee maker. I love the Keurig single cup coffee maker, because, quite frankly, I’m the only person in my household that drinks coffee. It used to be that for me making coffee was a real drag, because I had to make a whole pot or try to figure out how to make four cups or whatever. It just didn’t work very well.

Now, with the Keurig every morning I religiously walk into the kitchen and the very first thing I do, even before brushing my teeth, is get that cup of coffee. That may be too much information, and I promise you that I do brush my teeth right after that.

But, the very first thing that I do is get a cup of coffee.

Well, I saw an opportunity there, because recently as I talked about a couple of weeks ago I formed Mason World Enterprises LLC as part of my long range business strategy. As part of the formation of that company, I had a new logo created.

When I made that new logo I ordered business cards, and when I was checking out at Vista Print, where I ordered the business cards from, I encountered the classic internet marketing up sell. There I was ready to pay for my business cards and all of a sudden I was presented with a ton of options for other things that I could buy that had my logo. One of them was a coffee cup.

You might think that’s kind of silly, coffee cups are a promotional item and usually that’s the kind of a thing that a brick and mortar business would give away as a way to remind customers to be repeat customers. In my case, I use it for something completely different.

You see, every morning when I go in and I get my cup of coffee from my Keurig coffee maker now instead of some random coffee mug from my cabinet I use the Mason World Enterprises coffee mug. That reminds me every morning before I go off to my day job that I’ll be coming home to a set of objectives for 2010 that I’ve committed to obtain. It’s way of keeping my goals in front of me, just a small token that reminds me to stay focused on the things that I’ve set to try and achieve for 2010.

The Impact Of A Subtle Reminder

I think I stumbled on a really good idea, because it’s working. Every morning I get up, I’ve actually got a couple of these coffee mugs so that I can have a clean one all the time, and I look at this coffee mug and I think about what I’m going to do today to achieve my internet marketing goals. I’m even going to take the coffee mug with me to NAMS, so that I’ll have it with me to remind me to stay focused during the conference.

How are your goals for 2010? Are you achieving them or have you already lost sight of them? If you’ve already lost sight of your goals for 2010, or even if you’re making great progress, let me suggest to you that you get something that will remind you every day that you’ve got goals that you want to achieve.

After all, you can always remember and believe in what my friend, PotPieGirl has to say about these kind of things. If you’ll just spend a year doing the things that nobody else will do, you can spend a lifetime doing stuff that nobody else can do.

I hope you have a great day and an even better 2010. Thanks.

By the way — I am really interested to know how your 2010 is going so far.  Leave a comment below and let me know what's up.