I love the New Year.

To tell you the truth, I don’t look forward to Christmas, Thanksgiving, or even Talk Like a Pirate Day nearly as much as I do the New Year.

It’s not about the partying on New Year’s Eve, though; I’m in bed by 11, without a firecracker lit or a drop of champagne anywhere in sight. For me, the excitement is all about the anticipation of what’s ahead.

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something salivatory about starting a brand new year… it’s like a fresh start, a clean slate… a chance to make exciting changes in your life.

Can’t you make change anytime? Sure, but a new calendar year adds a certain “credible amnesia” to the mix… you can act as if your past doesn’t have nearly the influence on you than it does, and try to get away with it…)

Aye, there’s the rub, isn’t it?

Each time New Year’s comes around, you’ve got the best of intentions to make positive change in your life, and you rely on the hope of “credible amnesia” to give you enough of a break to escape the gravity of your habitual momentum and personal history, and really, really triumph this time.

Right? Why else would a tradition like “New Year’s Resolutions” (which have an abysmally high failure rate, rivaled only in their scope of failure by the catastrophic myth of low-fat diets) continue to survive in as widespread a way as they do?

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The new year is almost upon us… and you may be feeling completely unprepared for it. Of course, you may also be excited as a three-year-old on Christmas morning about it (something I got to witness first-hand this week).

Either way, a new year presents a wonderful opportunity. Sure, you could say it’s just another day, another week, another month. But there’s a shift that happens when a new year dawns; a hope that you can feel—and take advantage of—to make changes in the way you do things. The question then becomes: what to change?

Of course, it all depends on your priorities… and they fall in line behind your goals… which are a product of what’s important to you. To help you get a bit more clear on what’s important to you, and brainstorm a bit about possible changes to make, here are a few ideas to sit with and see what sparks your interest.

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Enlightenment consists not merely in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible. The latter procedure is more difficult, and therefore, unpopular. - Carl Jung

When you learned to drive, you were probably taught about the evil “blind spot” — the nether region of invisible space that exists when you stare straight ahead and only use your mirrors to see the space around your car. I won’t bore you with trigonometry and the nuances of peripheral vision, but suffice it to say, given the angle of most car mirrors, each of us as we hurdle down the highway at 100 km/h (and then some) are completely unaware of the gaps of space on either side of us that you could hide a Buick in.

Scary thought, huh?

Now, much like we drive our cars, we are driving through life (ooh, that’s deep…). And it doesn’t matter if you’re driving a life that looks like an Aston Martin or an Aztek — you’ve got a blind spot. Probably several of them.

Let me take a stab at naming a few you might be familiar with: Interpersonal communication. Eating too many carbs. Gullibility. Ability to understand global economics. Sucker for a shoe sale. Accounting. Honest self-examination. Anger management. Leaving dirty dishes in the sink. For days.

But let’s not get perfectionistic, okay?

Believe me, I’m the last person who’s beyond having a few gaps in my character. And despite what your internal Judge persona might say, having gaps a good thing.

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A longer post is on the way, but in the meantime…

I was interviewed by Personal Development author Jeanie Marshall at JMviews, which was a real treat… we got connected through Priscilla Palmer’s Energizer-Bunny-list of personal development blogs. You can click here to read the interview (and leave a comment, if you like).

If you’re anticipating the New Year already, and ready to get a jump on your resolutions to make this new year dynamic and amazing in your work… a new round of the Create a Business People Love course (the CBPL) is slated to begin in February. It just may be the leg-up (and the kick in the pants) you’re looking for… click here for details on the CBPL course.

And, I’m about to release a new segment of the Inner Audio Series… but when I do, I’m also going to up the price a bit. So, if you want to get in before the price goes up, now’s your chance (and don’t ever say I don’t give you no love…).

From a young age, you probably realized that you weren’t cut from the same cloth as most of the people around you. You saw things differently, and different things held value for you than what was important to the people around you. You always felt a bit like an outsider, and even when you did seem to fit in, you still felt like you were on the fringes, waiting for people to find out your secret.

How do I know this about you? Not just because it is/was true about me, but because I’ve worked with so many people over the years who’ve said the same thing about themselves, and I’ve come to see that it’s a lot more common than any of us seem to realize.

You’re not normal — is this bad?

Not at all, of course. When you think about it, what good is normality, anyhow (in a social sense, at least)?

So what does it mean?

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(Alternate title: “Tagged - No, Wait - Yes… Tagged!”)

As you know by now, a big part of my approach to work is about healing the voices within that keep us from showing up at our best.

So when I got tagged (more on that in a second) for Peter’s “Think Different” challenge, it was a no-brainer; the idea, basically, is to try thinking differently about something in your life that you’ve been holding as a negative… start thinking positively about it, and see what happens.

(The “tagging” debacle? I was told by Tristan Loo of the Synergy Institute that he tagged me, but he actually tagged a different Adam (he has since added me to his tagged list, though!). I sorta put it out of my mind, but then Jennifer Mannion of Heal Pain Naturally tagged me from her post… so that’s when I figured the Universe was trying to tell me something!)

As the wind bloweth

Now, thinking differently about something you’re holding as a negative is good… and, in my experience, it can be like trying to keep a paper cup on a picnic table in a wind storm. You can try to keep your thoughts in the positive, but if you’ve got a strong wind — belief systems, in this case — that keep on blowing the same way they have been, then you can try all you want to keep that cup on the table, but it isn’t going to happen.

If you want to keep your thoughts positive, you’ve got to Continue reading…

Does a year of free one-on-one support sound good? Well, Wednesday is the last day to get in on the drawing.

Of course, even if you didn’t win, it’s still an amazingly sweet offer:

• three Homestudy DVD courses,
• two ebooks,
• a complete teleseminar with all the bells and whistles, and
• a partridge in a pear tree*

for less than one month’s tuition in only one of the live programs would run you.

If you’ve been thinking about it, now’s your chance; the free consulting drawing ends tomorrow. Just a friendly reminder.

Edit:

The drawing for the free year of consulting is complete; I’ll be notifying the winner and giving them the good news!

Also: this has been a week of scrambling, so I’ll be back to regular posting next week. Until then, there’s a bevy of posts (long un’s, too) that I put up this past week that haven’t gotten their fair share of comments, so feel free to dive into those and have some fun!

(*partridge and pear tree not included)

Meet Elena. She’s one of those high-energy-yet-down-to-earth people, the kind of person you wish you knew more of. A literal fountain of ideas, she’s smart, quick to grasp concepts, and has more interests than a bank.

And that’s Elena’s problem (or so she’s been told). Her friend told her, “You’re too passionate, E… you jump from one thing to the next more often than anyone else.”

And it’s true — when she finds something that catches her attention, she’s on it like a hungry dog on a fresh bone, and she learns everything she can about her new passion.

So even though she loves learning, that voice often goes off in her head that says, “Maybe they’re right… maybe I should really cool my jets on this. I’m thinking about this way too much.”

But what the heck would she listen to that voice for?

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