1. Empower yourself

Take responsibility for the experience you have and will have throughout the year. Don’t allow yourself to think that it’s other people’s faults for what occurs to you – whether it’s the state of your diary, poor performers at work or the wayward behaviours of your boss.  Believe that you have the power to make it different. Take action to discuss, make requests, challenge and change whatever you would like to change.

Complain to those who have the power to make things different, rather than to those who can’t, (but who will sympathise and empathise with you,) but in whose remit the change can’t happen.

And, if something can’t be changed or it’s outside of your circle of influence, develop the serenity to accept the things that can’t be changed and be at peace about it.

2. Have your own vision

Take time to build a vision of the life and experience you would like to have, in terms of family, social, work, career and personal development. Then, hold the vision whilst you take appropriate actions to have those things happen for you. Mind your own business, as well as your company’s business, which means take time to develop goals and take actions to improve the quality of your family interactions, your friends and social activities. Make plans to see friends you don’t often see and plan for breaks with your loved ones. Take care of your finances and ensure that you’re saving for the future that you’d like to have, rather than spending only on the present you now have. Keep in mind that your family, home and social activities are often more important in providing the emotional well-being you need to be effective in work, let alone the energy, self-esteem and respect to progress successfully into the future you’d like for yourself.

3. Keep work in perspective

Your company got on very well without you before you arrived and will get on very well without you when you’ve gone.  Remember that your time with it is temporary, and therefore it is only about the contribution that you make to it whilst you’re there that will count.  You’re not its whole life and therefore don’t make it the whole of yours. Work-life balance will not be an issue if you get and live this perspective.

 4. Enjoy yourself

Remember that enjoyment is a valid and important clue of what is right for you. You are entitled to have a good time, whether it’s at work or in your family, and feeling good about what you’re doing is fundamental to stability, balance and good performance. If your work is characterised by challenges, difficulties and problems; if you’re beset by negativities and depressions, take time to consider whether you’re

a)      In the right place/role?

b)      Doing the right job?

c)       In the right company?

If your direct boss doesn’t appreciate you and your talents, find another who will. It will save you many sleepless nights, erosion of your self esteem and could significantly improve your financial well-being.

5. Identify your important goals

Each year brings new opportunities and 2012 could be a life enhancing experience for you and those important to you.  In December 2012, what achievements would you like to look back on and say you’ve accomplished this year? Be bold and set aside fear, so you can look clearly at what wishes and desires you may have suppressed and let them surface. Give yourself permission to dream of new journeys you may wish to take, new cultures or places you may want to experience, new relationships you may want to form and new conquests you want to make. Perhaps you can fulfil a major wish of a loved one? Or you have one highly significant, break-through goal you’d like to undertake? Write all of these down as things you’d like to accomplish, and check them off as you do them during the year. Then in December you can review them, congratulate yourself and celebrate their achievements. This will contribute greatly to your self-value and esteem.

 6. Become an inverse paranoid

Purposefully and consistently, chose to believe that the world is plotting to do you good. W. Clement Stone (businessman and philanthropist) saw every difficult and challenging event as something that was meant to help him, empower him and advance his cause. Such a positive attitudinal stance caused him to take positive actions that catalysed even more good things to happen for him. This is possible for you – change your mind today and believe that your success is being plotted by all those people who know you (and even those you don’t)!  Believe that we are all working to support you, to enhance your opportunities and expand your life in positive ways. You will find that your interactions with people will improve dramatically. Such positive expectations will make it easier for all of these good things to happen and for you to be willing to receive them, when they do.

7. Remember to remember to be grateful

We are all gifted with a supreme gift – life and consciousness – and we didn’t have to do very much to get this.  Yet every day, we awake and have another opportunity to breathe, see our loved ones, work and contribute to the benefit of others, be creative, learn and grow. Sometimes we forget how rich these things make us. We forget that all of these important things are mostly free and available to us and our habitual familiarity with them strips away their value from ourselves.  So, remember to remember to be grateful. Some people choose to write a Gratitude journal so they can remind themselves of what they have to be grateful for, others choose to pray or meditate. Whatever tool you use, remember to be grateful in yourself, and you will make your own life very rich.  If you then pass on to others these sentiments, you will make their life rich.

Penny Sophocleous January 2012