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It’s almost a New Year. What are you going to do to make this year better than ever?

In most Western countries, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of shopping, eating, and family gatherings. Many of us will finish with one last night of debauchery this evening, and a day on the couch watching parades and football or in the kitchen enjoying still more delicious food tomorrow. After that, it’s back to “real” life and work.

It’s great fun to have this annual break from the routine and to reconnect with family and friends that we may not see the rest of the year, but it’s no accident that every New Year is accompanied by Resolutions. It’s also no accident that most of those Resolutions will be history by February. The good news is, that a little self-reflection and a reasonable plan of action can go a long way toward making those personal and career resolutions attainable. Here’s a process that I’m constantly tweaking, but basically works for me:

1. Form an Image of the Future. It’s impossible to move ahead if you don’t know where you want to go, so take this step seriously. Close your eyes and think about what you want your life to look like a year from now. In keeping with the principles of Goal-Free Living be somewhat loose in your definitions using the analogy of a compass, not a map. For example, I want to put a lot of effort into expanding this blog in the coming year, and providing a lot of value to my readers. When I imagine that part of my future, I won’t set specific traffic targets or monetary numbers. Instead, I’ll picture myself writing, filled with happiness and receiving lots of useful feedback.
2. Assess Where You Are Now. Once you know the direction you want to head, you need to figure out where you are. Be honest with yourself, but remember to be kind as well. Use quantitative measures as much as possible to keep emotions and judgement out of it. In my example of wanting to bring more value to my blog, I can look at the number of posts I wrote in 2007 and see that I averaged less than my ideal of 3-4 posts per week. This gives me a foundation to build from.
3. Pick 1 Behavior You Can Change Right Now. In my experience, the key to successful personal change is to work on one thing at a time. The more concrete the behavior is the better. Define what you are going to do to change your behavior, how you’re going to do it, and when. To increase my blog’s value, I have decided to dedicate time every Sunday to generating content ideas and drafting some posts for the week. Usually Sunday afternoon is downtime for me, so it’s not a big sacrifice to spend a couple of hours with a mug of tea outlining posts.
4. Set a Reminder to Check-In Next Month. This step is critical. In my observation, people fail to regularly monitor their progress toward their ideal futures. When we don’t check in with ourselves regularly, we’ll inevitably end up in our pajamas next December 31 wondering what we did wrong. Set a regular appointment with yourself for “compass calibration” where you go through the same visualization and assessment process on a monthly basis. If you’ve struggled with your behavioral change, rethink your strategies and make changes as needed. If you’ve been successful begin to work on another behavior. At the end of January, if I’ve become comfortable with my weekly posting routine, I’ll work on some of the marketing aspects of running a blog that I haven’t explored yet.

In the course of our lives and careers, we need to learn to react to changes that happen to us, but it is also important to proactively cause changes that will take us in the direction of our ideal futures. I hope this process helps you in setting your direction for the coming year!

If you have suggestions for improving this process, please share with all of us in the comments.

Photo courtesy of Sagoland.

So I’m fighting I have a cold. Which I hate. I’m tired, my throat is sore and my eyeballs feel warm. I’m fairly sure I have a slight fever because it’s 72F in my office and I’m shivering. For my evening snack, I’ll be enjoying an Airborne cocktail.

But there is a positive lesson to be learned here.

Changing My View on Self-Care
Upon doing a little reflection last night, I realized that every time I have a mild illness, I treat myself better than when I’m healthy. For example, in a typical night I might try to: write a blog post, clean the house, get a hard workout in, and prepare meal from scratch all within the space of about four hours.

Clearly that wasn’t going to happen last night. I had to make a choice of fighting reality, or actually taking care of myself. I decided to take a few steps to recover faster. Here’s what I did:

• Walked hard on the treadmill with the goal of getting very warm, not exhausted.
• Ate a simple dinner of vegetables and protein – in my case a veggie burger.
• Took a hot shower, stretched out and went to bed early for about 9 hours of sleep.

What I realized is that I don’t have to wait for a cold or the flu to hit me before I take a night off. Just as I’ve given myself permission to take a weekend retreat occasionally, I need to learn to have a weeknight retreat every couple of weeks.

Ed. Note: This post is part of the Think Different Challenge, which was started by Peter at IWillChangeYourLife. I was delighted to be tagged by Tristan at the Synergy Institute. Be sure to check Tristan’s post for links back to posts written by other “tagees.” If you would like to participate in the Think Different Challenge here’s how.

The Think Different Challenge is all about finding something in your life you currently have negative thoughts or feelings towards (eg work or your mother-in-law), and deciding to look at it differently. It is about realizing that some things are just a part of life, so we may as well try to find the positives in them.

Who Can Participate?
This is an online writing project, so anyone who can publish text and active links on the internet can participate. Having your own website or blog is not a requirement, just write a post with links in your favorite social networking site.

The Rules
1. Write a new blog post in which you “think different”. Follow my suggestions above, or be a bit different and interpret the challenge the way you want .
2. State that the post is a part of the Think Different Challenge and include a link and/ or trackback to this post so that readers know the rules of the challenge. Feel free to use the above banner (inspired, of course, by Seth Godin).
3. Include a link and/ or trackback to the blogger who tagged you.
4. At the end of your post, go ahead and tag some fellow bloggers. Don’t forget to email them to let them know they have been tagged.
5. That’s it! Just sit back and enjoy reading peoples’ responses to the challenge.

Tag, You’re It
In keeping with the spirit of the Challenge, I’ve decided to tag several of my fellow bloggers. I’m currently participating in the Blog Mastermind program and I’m tagging other BMMers who write in similar niches.

Armannd at Project Armannd was the first person in my tag list to complete a post. The Benefits of Health Issues in Life describes how having a serious illness - maybe even a life-threatening one - can seriously motivate a person to focus and achieve more in his or her life.

Michelle Vandepas also had a cold and posted about it at Divine Purpose Unleashed. Her post, 7 Questions to Ask When You’re Sick challenges us to re-evaluate what an illness means and the signals that our body may be sending to us.

• Brooke at Plain Advice
• Brad Isaac at Achieve IT!
• Leigh at All for Women
• Adam at Life Goggles
• Sean at How to Manifest Your Dreams

A couple of weekends ago I decided to devote my whole weekend to relaxation and personal development. I was feeling quite burnt out and tired and rather than continuing to drag myself down, I chose to be proactive and take a “time out.” It’s easier and more affordable than you might think to have a weekend like this. In this post, I’ll show you how.

Ingredients for a Personal Development Weekend

• 1 Part Standard Issue Hotel Room. Substitutions are allowed and encouraged. The only requirement is that a PD weekend should happen in a place where you can find peace and quiet. You may find this in a secluded campground, or a cute Bed & Breakfast, or even your own home. Let your comfort level and budget be your guide.
• 1 Part Place with Something to Look At. This is for taking breaks, getting something to eat, and walking around. I chose a town relatively near my home that has a lot of old buildings.
• Something to Write In. Your Something to Write In doesn’t have to be fancy, but I find that having a nice journal makes the reflecting process more fun.
• Music. My recommendation is something relaxing and some guided meditations. My tool of choice for this is my Sony Walkman mp3 Player
• Liberal Dose of Nature. Part of the renewal process for me involves lots of quiet outdoors time and walking around. This may not be your thing, but I encourage you to think about your need for natural light and fresh air.
• A Pinch of Personal Development Products. Try not to go overboard here. One or two systems are about all anyone can digest in a weekend. I decided to focus on some Neuro-Linguistic programming experiments and some journaling exercises.
• Tea. I guess you could choose a different beverage, but I don’t know why you’d want to!
• Be Sure to Omit: Television, alcohol, and attention stealers like email, IM, and text messages.

Directions - Friday
Take the back way to your destination and use the drive time to unwind. Listen to some good music, or maybe a guided meditation. Enjoy the scenery.

After you’ve checked into your Standard Issue Hotel room, go into the little town for dinner. Enjoy dinner and leave the waitress a large tip to cultivate the spirit of generosity.

Go back to the hotel room and take a hot bath. Do a little yoga, listen to a meditation, and SLEEP.

Directions - Saturday
Wake up when your body tells you to. Meditate using a guided meditation, listen to some music, or just observe your own breath. Remember to put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, unless you’d like to meet the housekeeping staff

Spend a little time on your personal development systems or exercises - maybe do a little journaling or write a letter to someone you love. Make some tea and walk around town for a while.

After lunch, head out into nature and walk some more. Take photos if you’re inclined. Be silent and listen to the world for at least 5 minutes.

Pick up some dinner, drive back to the hotel, and take advantage of the empty pool and hot tub. Shower, stretch, meditate and SLEEP.

Directions - Sunday
Wake up when your body tells you to. Meditate using a guided meditation, listen to some music, or just observe your own breath. Go out to breakfast, or linger over the complimentary continental breakfast at your hotel. Read a book or chat with other customers. Take another short walk and prepare to head home refreshed and feeling great.

I hope you’ve all had the chance to have a Personal Development Weekend. If you have, please tell us about it in the comments.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, get better grades in school, or train for an athletic competition, someone has probably told you, “Get a partner!” The idea is that being accountable to another person and having a support system is great reinforcement as you journey toward your goal. I’ve had great success with this in the past and have been seeking support systems recently to help me achieve new goals.

I am excited that there’s now an entire community on the Web devoted to supporting people working on their personal development.

As you can see, it’s called Personal Development Partners, and it’s a new community site dedicated solely to personal development. It just so happens that today is the last day of a huge membership drive and is a great time to join. The community has grown enormously over the past few weeks so the discussion boards are starting to see a good amount of activity.

One unique aspect to this site is a group called the Senior Thought Leaders. These include some well known personal development bloggers like Priscilla Palmer, Aaron Potts, and Dave Olson. From what I’ve seen, all of the Senior Thought Leaders are quite active in the discussion boards and more than willing to give advice and feedback.

Another great feature is the Forum dedicated to forming partnerships and Mastermind groups where members support each other in achieving goals. It’s one of the most popular forums on the site and one where I plan to participate the most.

I joined a couple of weeks ago at the free level which gives you access to most of the discussion boards and a MySpace-esque user profile page with lots of customization and social media options. A couple of days ago, I decided to upgrade to the Premium level (for the bargain price of $10 for 6 months!) to gain access to the electronic resources contributed by the Senior Thought Leaders. To see what’s available have a look a this list. I’ve downloaded a couple of the ebooks and audio selections and am enjoying those as well. You’ll have to hurry is you want to get in at the $10 price, because it’s going up to $20 for 6 months tomorrow!

If you have any interest in working with others to achieve your personal development goals, I encourage you to check out Personal Development Partners. When you sign up, be sure to introduce yourself!

Ed. Note: Blog Action Day is here! This is the day that over 15,000 bloggers agreed to post about the environment in a way that fits with their blog. Never the Same River Twice is proud to participate in this great community action.

The state of the global environment is on almost everyone’s mind these days. Today especially, you will find blog posts and news stories all over the internet, on your radio, and on television with dozens or maybe even hundreds of ways that you can help Save the World! Unfortunately, most of us will never make the changes that we want to make to lessen our impact on the planet.

Why is that?

I believe that when some people think about the changes that they could make - all the things we all know we should do like recycling, driving less, and using less electricity - they get caught up in thinking that the changes will be TOO HARD. Rather than go through all that trouble, these people just continue on in their old habits.

Change Your Mindset
Before we can begin to make behavioral changes in any type of sustained and successful way, we first need to change how we think. Whether you choose change in a rapid or gradual way, you will first need to decide on the types of changes you are willing to make and why.

It’s Not About Deprivation
I believe that so many people are resistant to becoming more environmentally responsible because they equate conservation with deprivation. Every environmentally friendly change is seen as a sacrifice, and no one likes to give up things that they see as fun or pleasurable. Just look at some sentences from the beginning of this post - use less electricity, drive less - the subconscious message is you can’t live in a sustainable way and still have fun.

Are there ways that we can reframe these concepts in ways that make them more acceptable to our brains? How about:

I have the opportunity to slow down, spend more time outside, and get more exercise - instead of, I have to drive less.

• I can enjoy the scent and atmosphere of  burning candles - instead of, I have to use less electricity.
• I enjoy meeting my area farmers and sampling new foods - instead of, I can’t eat out of season foods.
• What are other ways that we can reframe some fear and deprivation-based statements? Please leave suggestions in the comments below.

P.S. If you have time, check out a few of the contributors to Blog Action on the Participants page.