One of my post-Thanksgiving goals heading towards the Christmas holidays is to connect with 5 entrepreneurs in Montreal and find ways to help them. In return, I hope they’ll have ways to help me.

When it comes to helping entrepreneurs (and receiving help) the spectrum of opportunity is broad. Help might include contacts, a helpful ear, money, leads, etc. I’m flexible, and always looking for some help.

It’s been 6 months or so since I realized that one of my biggest mistakes as an entrepreneur wasn’t networking enough in my own backyard. I didn’t build up a foundation of valuable, local contacts that I could rely on. Oops. Stupid mistake.

Truth be told, I knew it was a mistake years ago but only recently started working to fix it.

I’m setting the number of new entrepreneur contacts at 5 because it’s ambitious in the short time I have, but not overly so. A few cocktail parties, introductions, etc. and I’ll have met 5 worthwhile people. Finding ways to help is the next step to that, and hopefully those opportunities will be obvious.

Part of goal setting is to be ambitious, but not ridiculous. Setting short-term goals like, “I want to rule the world,” is only going to end in disappointment. But setting goals that are too easily achievable will leave you feeling empty pretty quickly. There might be a short rush from succeeding but it won’t last.

So what are your goals? What do you want to accomplish from now till the end of the year?

Write a blog post (or more!) about your goals for the rest of the year and link back to Instigator Blog. Tag your posts (for Technorati), “post-thanksgiving goal writing project” and I’ll make sure to link back to you and try to connect you with others that can help you achieve your goals!

This post is part of my Post-Thanksgiving Goal Writing Project. Participate today!