How to Make This Your Best Year Ever

Nine illustrated ideas to help you conquer the New Year

Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to get up at the crack of dawn, make your bed, take up yoga or buy some infernal planner. Not that any of those suggestions are bad. It’s just that I want to share some less obvious ideas to bolster your success and happiness this year.

Do the following suggestions work? Well, they did for me. I embraced all of them in the past, and my life improved for the better. Others I know who adopted these tips benefited from them, too.

Yes, my evidence is somewhat anecdotal. I can’t point to any big studies or research to back up these tips. All I know is that they worked for me, and continue to improve my life. Hopefully, if you try them, they’ll improve your life, too.

Here are nine tips to help you conquer the new year.

Do the Opposite

Maybe you’ve heard the common refrain, “Do what you’ve always done, get what you’ve always got.” There’s a lot of truth to that, and yet many of us keep repeating the same things, hoping for a different outcome that never materializes.

Blogger Cindy Reed wrote a post about the power of doing the opposite. Here’s part of what she shared: