My Best Year Yet

Your Best Year Yet! Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever
by Jinny S. Ditzler

(Page 2 of 2)

As we've said many times so far, it's a challenge to set serious goals about things that really matter. If you're reading this book then you know I've finally been successful in achieving my goal of writing a book, a dream I've had for as long as I can remember. But nothing happened about this goal for years and years and years. In fact, even though I've been doing Best Year Yet for myself since 1980, it didn't make it to my list of top ten goals until recently. It just seemed an impossible dream to me, so I didn't give it any serious thought. Much longing, believe me, but no serious thought.

And even though I was leading Best Year Yet workshops and coaching others to have their big dreams come true, this goal lay dormant and untouched beneath a pile of regret and resentment. There was always a reason why now wasn't the time:

• I'm too tired at the end of the day and on the weekends.

• My business partners and clients need me to be doing something more important and far more urgent.

• The onset of menopause has stopped my brain from functioning.

• My writing a book wouldn't contribute to the direction in which we want the business to go.

• It would be a waste of time doing something that probably wouldn't earn us any money.

… and on and on.

The thread you can see running through my reasons for not writing is the mind-set I'm a victim of circumstances beyond my control. This is a common theme for me, and certainly one I've often spotted in other people. Over the years the tune in my head has been the same, though the key has changed from time to time: I'd love to write. I'm probably a great writer. I really have something to say but I can't because _________ (fill in the blank from the list above).

Several years ago I even subscribed to a magazine for writers with the hope that it would stimulate me to do something, but every month when another issue arrived in the mail I was filled with guilt and frustration. I piled them in a neat chronological stack by my bed so that when the time came I could read them, learn about writing, and motivate myself to get started. But that time never came.

Until one New Year's Day, when Tim and I spent the day with our friends Jock and Susie.

At some point in the day we were talking about Best Year Yet, and I was scribbling down the ten questions for them to use, explaining how the process worked and telling them about the good time we'd had doing the exercise a couple of days before with our son Jeff, who was with us during his Christmas break from college. (He'd started the exercise with little enthusiasm as he listed four accomplishments and twenty-six disappointments for his past year! But later he told us how good it felt having let go of some of the terrible memories he had of the past semester: That's done. I need to move on.)

Then one of them said, "You know, you really should write a book about this!" We laughed at the tired suggestion; we all know each other well and sometimes tease one another about dreams gone moldy. Mine is the well-known book. But somehow they got through to me that day, and I began to get excited about writing in a way that was different for me. I felt that they really did want me to write the book, and they convinced me that Best Year Yet was an important idea that could help a lot of people. This was music to my ears. And so I started to believe in myself more seriously and redid my goals for the year, changing number four on my list of top ten goals to: Write my first book and find a fabulous agent and publisher. And when I next spoke to Jeff, he looked at me with his smirk and said, "Yeah, Mom, just do it!"

When I got past my initial euphoria and actually tried to start writing, I was stopped for more than a month by another stack of limiting beliefs:

• I'm probably not nearly as good as I think I am.
• Every book I want to write has already been written.
• I can't stand the thought of people reading what I've written-they'll probably laugh at me behind my back and never tell me.
• This is all so trite and stupid.
• How can anyone be expected to write a book when they're already working fifty to sixty hours a week?
• No publisher will want to publish anything I've written anyway.

All this with a husband who kept encouraging me to write a book, telling me that he knew it would be a best-seller.

We Love Our Limitations
We love our limitations! We must, because we certainly don't want to let them go.
Victim of Circumstance?

We become comfortable thinking of ourselves as smaller than our problems, feeling a victim of circumstances, and blaming others for the fact that we don't have what we want. It's not that other people aren't terrible sometimes, but becoming their victim makes us powerless. Hopefully it's easy for you to see that my blaming other people and situations for not being able to write my book robbed me of this goal for years. I had made myself impotent. And yet it's just a small example of something we can see around us everywhere.

There is always someone and something to blame in our lives. Blaming becomes a habit, and not an easy one for any of us to give up. It's a comfortable old friend. Just yesterday I asked my friend Mary what she was doing in the coming three-day weekend. She said, "I'm going to the country to visit my aunt and her family. The prediction is for the weather to be beautiful, but with my luck it'll probably rain." What luck? Who says? How crazy to wallow in the perverse satisfaction of such statements whose empty reward is being able to say, "See, I knew it!" or "I told you so." We can hear evidence of this attitude everywhere if we listen for it, but we're so used to it we're largely unaware of it or its cost. Catching ourselves in this self-defeating approach to life, as I had to do with my writing, is the only way out.

Too rarely do we hear anyone say,

• "This weekend is going to be great!"
• "Leave it to me, I'll deal with it."
• "I'm sorry, it's my fault. It won't happen again."
• "We've made a couple of mistakes but we'll keep going until we get it right."

But the alternative to playing the victim is to become tougher inside ourselves and start taking personal responsibility for our own lives. I understand how hard it can be. But Best Year Yet works, and it goes on working, year after year, dream after dream. This is especially clear to me as I sit here tapping away on my computer, enjoying the process of passing it on.

As far as I can tell, life is more about learning than anything, and again and again I learn the lesson of the Chinese proverb that says, "If we don't change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are going."

Ready or Not?

By now you've read quite a bit about me and people I've known. Now it's time to take a moment to think about yourself. The more aware you can be of yourself as you begin this process, the more successful you'll be. Answer the following questions as honestly as you can. No one's watching.

Life So Far

Circle either T or F, depending on whether the statement is true or false for you:

T F There have been times in my life when I have set and achieved goals.

T F When I take the time to think about it, I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far.

T F While I feel I have much to be grateful for, something is missing and I'd like to find out what it is.

T F I know I have more potential than I've used so far.

T F I can remember times in the past when I kept going regardless of setbacks and made something happen.

T F I know that I've lost confidence in myself over the years, but I'm not quite ready to give up.

T F I know that if I tackled at least one or two of the issues that trouble me most, I'd be much happier.

T F I find it easier to remember my failures than my successes, and I see how this has caused me to stop believing in myself as strongly as I once did.

T F It troubles me that although I have strong personal beliefs and values, the way I've lived my life so far hasn't reflected these as much as I'd like.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the more T's you have circled, the better chance you have to succeed in setting plans and making them happen. How many did you circle?

Personal Beliefs and Values

Check those statements that express your personal beliefs and values:

_ I am responsible for myself and what happens to me.
_ Although I sometimes resist the idea, I'm aware that even a bit more discipline could make a big difference in my life.
_ I believe that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.
_ "As ye sow, so shall ye reap"-or, What goes around comes around.
_ Keeping a positive attitude is vital to my success.
_ It's wise to ask for help when I need it.
_ It's all right to make mistakes because it shows I'm trying.
_ The more successful I am, the more important it is to give back in some way.
_ I'm committed to the happiness of my loved ones.
_ It's very important to me to live up to my personal beliefs and values.

Obviously in this section the information is personal and there are no right or wrong answers. However, I believe most of these statements would be accepted by people who have become truly successful. What matters most is to know what you believe in and what you value.

Our sense that something is missing comes at those times when we're off the course set by our beliefs and values. One of the ten Best Year Yet questions explores this area more fully.

What Motivates Us Is Our Desire to Be True To Ourselves

What motivates most of us far more than material success or recognition is our desire to be true to ourselves and live our lives in ways that demonstrate our personal values and beliefs.

Excuses I Have Known and Loved

Check the ones you've used in the past.

I really want to do things differently, but I can't because …

_ I want to keep my options open.
_ Once something's gone bad, you can't really change it.
_ Goal setting and thinking about what I want is such a selfish and self-absorbed business.
_ I passed my "sell by" date a long time ago.
_ Once I get through this busy time, I'm really going to take time to sort myself out.
_ It's boring to know where I'm going and what's going to happen next.
_ If I fix my mind on a goal, I'll miss other exciting opportunities when they present themselves.
_ You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
_ I can't be bothered.

To be honest, I'd be suspicious of anyone who didn't check most of these excuses. Welcome to the human race. The challenge for all of us is to become more aware of the times we're using these excuses rather than doing what we want to do to move ourselves forward. Be especially wary of any you see as statements of truth rather than excuses. They have the power to stop you.

How Motivated Am I?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, rate yourself on the following:

___ I am committed to making positive changes in my life.
___ Planning a year ahead and setting goals for myself makes sense to me. I'm ready to give it a try.
___ I can count on myself to do what I need to do this time.
___ I know a great deal about what I need to do to change my life.
___ It matters to me that I live up to my personal beliefs and values.
___ I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make this process work for me.
___ There are other people in my life who would benefit if I took the time to plan the next year of my life.
___ Even though I'm afraid to confront some of my problems, I'm ready to do it.
___ I'm now ready to use my abilities and my intelligence more fully and courageously.
___ I'm going to set aside three hours in the next week to answer the ten Best Year Yet questions. No matter what. ___ total score

Total your score on motivation and refer to the chart below to see how ready you are for your best year yet.

90?100 Congratulations. It's possible that life will never again be the same for you.

70?89 Although you may need to push yourself from time to time, you could be on your way to your best year yet.

51?69 It's hard to tell what's going to happen. You're not quite sure whether you're really ready to get into the driver's seat.

If your score is below 50, you've just told yourself that you're not ready to make the most of the information in this book. Either improve your approach or wait until you're feeling more confident. However, any of you who scored a 10 on the last statement have the best chance of all.

Just Do It

In over twenty-five years of working with people, I've seen one big difference between those who truly succeed in making things happen and the ones who don't: Those who do, act.

They think of an idea and they move on it. They get a feeling that something could work and they take the steps to try it out. They take a course and they find the discipline to put what they've learned into practice. They read a book, find an idea they like, and they take steps to use it in their lives. They hear about a meditation that could decrease their stress level and give them a stronger sense of who they really are and they set aside the time and get started. They just do it.

So if you're one of these people, stop now and turn to Part Three, where you'll find the Best Year Yet workbook. Make a cup of coffee or pour a glass of wine, turn on some music, and start writing your answers. It's that simple. And three hours from now you'll know even more about where you're going and feel more motivated to get there. Just make yourself do it-the way you usually do.

According to Stephen Covey, the first habit of highly effective people is to be proactive. In other words, rather than letting life happen to you, make it happen. Even if you don't recognize yourself as one of those people who just does it, you could become one of them simply by moving straight to the questions and getting started on your best year yet.

Some people are born to "just do it"-they seem to have come packaged with a strong inner drive or compulsion to succeed, and they move full steam ahead. But most of us have had to learn a great deal in order to do a better job designing our own lives; we were made rather than born. I'm certainly one of these. Compared to the consciousness with which I now live my life, I spent most of my early days in a sleepy fog, feeling jerked around by life but "doing my best given the circumstances."

So, even if you're not one of the high-drive people described above, you're not out of the race. You've already achieved so much in your life, and I hope you appreciate that about yourself. But in order to make the best use of this book you need the discipline to sit down and write your answers to the ten questions.

The truth is, you already know a great deal-more than you think you know-about what to do to change your life for the better.

The trick is doing it, taking that first step, making it happen. And yet often we don't. While it's important to find out what stops you and why (which we'll explore in later chapters), what works best is just getting on with it. Understanding your limitations can come later.

Answering the ten deceptively simple but powerful Best Year Yet questions can make all the difference. It's not always an easy exercise, but in the process of answering the questions you'll learn a lot about yourself, how you make things happen, and how you hold yourself back. You'll begin to see how to build a more meaningful life for yourself, and soon you'll be looking forward to the year ahead. I promise. Just do it.

One more word about getting on with it: If you're wondering, "Is this book the one that will really help me?", the answer is, it certainly could be. It's up to you. As you well know, it's not enough to buy the book. In order to stop floating from one resolution to another or drifting from one good intention to the next, you need to act.

Most of us trap ourselves by not being willing to take the necessary steps to be the masters of our own lives, yet we'll be damned if we'll let anyone or anything serve as our master for us in the meantime! The result? No one's in charge. We get nowhere. Every bit of true progress I've made in my life has come from really listening to a loved one, a teacher, or an author, and having the discipline to practice his or her lessons until I have learned them. Action and follow-through are everything.

There's another prevalent mind-set that can stop us from making the best use of the modern repackaging of ancient wisdom so popular in the past twenty to thirty years: cynicism. Those with this attitude attempt to take the intellectual high ground over any discipline of self-improvement or personal transformation by labeling it "silly ineffectual nonsense" or "psychobabble" and displaying a general snobbery toward anyone who tries to support us in making positive change in our lives. This approach is just another path of avoidance that stops us doing what we want to do. I know; I thought this way for years.

So, if you've decided that this book could help you and you're ready to get going right away, turn to the questions and get started. Or if you are someone who prefers a more deliberate approach, that works too, sometimes better. This book is not about the quick fix or creating overnight miracles, although for some of you it might do that. Whoever you are, if you feel there are changes you'd like to make and you scored well on motivation, now is the time. Just do it!

© Jinny S. Ditzler

About the Author

Jinny S. Ditzler is a corporate trainer and entrepreneur who has been helping people achieve new heights of personal performance for the past twenty years.