This time of year people talk about goal-setting as though it were some sacred mission. Setting goals or New Year’s resolutions has become the thing to do these final days of the year. Though here is the kicker: turns out, only eight percent of us will keep them. Staggering, no? If this makes you want to tear up your resolution list, take heart. There’s one thing you can do to fix this: find one thing. I mean literally.

If there’s something I’ve noticed in book marketing (and, for that matter, in life) sometimes doing one thing can literally change your life, and your marketing, for the better. The problem is that we often look at what others are doing to market their book and we think, “I need to do it all, come January 1 I’m on Twitter, and Pinterest, and Facebook and, and…” Granted, while everyone else is watching the Rose Parade, you’ll be powering out your social media, tweeting and posting away. But for how long? And therein lies the problem. We push ourselves to do it all, because it’s a bright shiny New Year and that’s what you do, right? Well, maybe some of us can. That would be the eight percent. The rest of us, however, the ninety-two percent, will be struggling to keep up with the brisk pace we set for ourselves on December 31.

But then there’s one thing. What one thing could you do in the New Year that will change your marketing world for the better? When I asked some authors we work with, they gave me all sorts of answers. One even said, “If I limit myself to scanning social media, I’ll have more time to blog.” Great, that’s his one thing. For someone else, she said, “I need to blog more.” Fantastic, there’s another “one thing.”

Now you may be reading this thinking that it’s pretty Pollyanna of me to reduce your entire list (maybe pages of goals) down to one thing but consider this: sometimes one thing is all it takes to create a domino effect that moves the rest of your marketing in the right direction.

For the gal who wants to blog more, now she’s creating content that she can easily share on social media. For the guy who wants less “screen time” on social media, he’s now bought himself an hour a day (maybe more if he’s on Pinterest) to devote to doing other things. Want more ideas? Take a look at some of the other input I got:

1)      Hire a coach to give me advice and keep me on the right marketing track.

2)      Learn how to do social media so I no longer feel like a dinosaur.

3)      Join a local riters group and attend at least one meeting a month.

4)      Get more active on LinkedIn, drop all the other social sites.

5)      Add Google Plus to my list of social sites.

That one thing, for many of these folks, could help boost their marketing, or certainly turn their marketing in a favorable new direction. At the very least they’re not dealing with some lengthy list they may never get through. When I coach authors I often tell them that if their list is too long, they’ll only end up discouraged when they don’t hit all of the fifty goals they set for themselves. When discouragement kicks in, the interest in marketing diminishes.

So, let me ask you: what’s your one thing? What’s the one thing you could do in 2014 that would turn your marketing around? Got it? Now tear up that long list (or put it somewhere for next year) and focus on that one thing. Just one.

Happy New Year!