2014 Your Best Year Ever

2013 is in the history books and whether it turned out good, bad or mediocre, your results are official. And although the New Year is barely a week old, many people’s wishes for the New Year (resolutions) have already veered of course and into a ditch alongside the road of life.

No need to worry… there are still 51 weeks remaining to make 2014 your best year ever! The all important question is what will it take for you to be able to state on December 31, 2014 that “this was my best year ever?”

» What exactly would have to happen?

» What would have to change?

» What will constitute real success for you?

The question that I am really asking you is this… How do you define personal success on your own terms? If you find yourself struggling to come up with a clear definitive answer, the first thing that you need to know is that you are not alone. The vast majority of people worldwide don’t actually know what it is that they want for their lives or what they want to happen in their lives. This accounts for the very reason why 95% of all people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions. It is this same lack of clarity about what they want the sets them up for the trap “when this or that happens” I will be happy > I will have arrived > I will be successful.

However, the temporal rush of the new luxury car, tropical vacation or dream home soon wanes. People then find themselves all too quickly back in search mode for the next great thing that is destined to make them feel fulfilled this time.

Unfortunately, it just never quite works out for them. The reason is that true success does not equate with the outdated bumper sticker that says “He or she with the most toys wins”. Authentic success is something far more than the accumulation of “stuff”.

The key to defining what success is centers on your ability to determine what it is that you want out of life and why it will provide real meaning and value to your life.

As for your own New Year’s resolution, if you haven’t fallen off of the horse yet… that’s great. The thing you need to be crystal clear about is that you are not going to accomplish what ever your resolution is solely on the basis of your own will power. It simply doesn’t work that way.

Whether it’s simply this year’s resolution or something more substantial such as making 2014 your best year ever, the truth of the matter is that you are going to need an actual “plan”. Even if you claim to know how you are going to do it, the facts and statistics are clear that the general ideas rolling around inside of your cranium aren’t going to get the job done. More than likely those thoughts and ideas are a bit fuzzy and won’t provide you with a decisive course of action that will result in eventual achievement.

Real success at any level requires a roadmap to follow in order to get to your eventual destination. For instance, if you lived in New York City you couldn’t just jump in your car, start it up, put the transmission in gear and drive to Los Angeles without a roadmap. And just in case you have a lot of stuff including a GPS, your global positioning system is nothing more than a computer driven interactive “roadmap”.

Success is out there for the taking… If you are willing to do what it takes. So decide what you want for your life this coming year, make a concrete plan on how to get it and obtain what ever help you need to assure your success. When you do, you’ll be able to say that 2014 was your best year ever!

Copyright © 2014 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.