2012 is here! The New Year means resolutions to lose weight, eat healthier, spend more time with the family, and on and on. While you are mapping out that plan to battle the bulge also strategize resolutions for your career.

“It is important to set goals each year if you want a career and not just a job,” says Marcos Sanchez, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Egnyte. “If you want a career than it is about thinking long term about where you want to be and what job you want to have.”

Public relations professionals move faster than the Energizer Bunny. It is important to slow down and set goals that can hold you to a steady path. The New Year is a clean slate to analyze what you want to accomplish in 2012.

Richard Wisemen from the University of Bristol conducted research which concluded that 78% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. One of the key reasons is that the goals were too broad. Make sure to set specific actionable goals in order to keep yourself accountable and on track.

Questions to ask yourself when determining your goals are:

• What is something that I didn’t have time for in 2011 that I need to focus on in 2012?
• What are new trends in the PR industry I should become familiar with?
• Where are my weaknesses in PR—social media, crisis communication, pitching?

“You never want to be viewed as someone who merely reacts to things as they happen or is satisfied with whatever you accomplish,” says Andrew Schrage, co-owner of Money Crashers personal finance blog. “Rather, you want to have a plan in place with benchmarks along the way. Put together a list of goals and track your progress throughout the year. Without goals, you’ll just be spinning your wheels without any ability to truly gauge your success!”

If you need a jump start on creating your 2012 professional resolutions, here are a few New Year’s resolutions that are on fellow practitioners’ lists:

• Inspire a journalist to cover a story from a company sent tweet.
  – John Forberger, Oxford Communications

• Dedicate yourself to being transparent and valuable content creators and not spin doctors.
  – Samantha McCollough, Idatix

• Remember to do your own PR. Practitioners often forget to treat themselves as a client.
  – Jessica Suter, The Change PR

• Obtain your APR. It is manageable and rewarding.
  – Lora Johnson, APR, APCO Worldwide

• Continue to refine pitching skills.
  – Annabel Adams, HUMAN Healthy Vending

Linzy Roussel Cotaya is a New Orleans based public relations professional with a social media hobby. Her resume includes a mix of ad agency and nonprofit experience.  Follow Linzy on twitter, @zzcrawfish, or on www.crawfishtales.com.