What’s on your to-do list this year?

Refreshed from your holiday break? Ready to get back at it? Here are five worthy goals to pursue in the New Year

1. I will write a story that people talk about. Easier said than done. Most corporate communications, like most mainstream news reporting, is not meant to be memorable.

Few stories we write will send readers scurrying for the scissors so they can clip and save our life-altering prose. If we’re lucky, and we do our jobs well, most news writing is simply that—news. Of course, we hope to pass along that useful information in a clear, concise way—and then move on.

Look for these stories wherever you can find them. One great reporting and writing job makes all the grunt work and mind-numbing stories about improvement processes suddenly worthwhile.

2. I will try something I haven’t done yet. Each year should present new challenges for a writer, and if you’re not finding them, it may be time to move on or shake things up.

This may be the year that you rethink the way you approach employee profiles, finally turning them into stories people want to read. Maybe it’s time to tackle a complex story, one that will prove to yourself—and to your readers—that you can translate jargon and technical information into something that makes sense to the rest of us.