Ten Ways to Make 2010 Your Best Year Yet

Usually, when I get forwarded mails, I ignore them. I've seen most of them since I started to go online more than 10 years ago. This email I got from one of my mailing lists, however, made my head turn around. After reading it, I thought this is some pretty good advice to follow for the year:

TEN WAYS TO MAKE 2010 YOUR BEST YEAR YET

The great thing about the New Year is that there's always the prospect of having a fresh start. Whether or not you did good last year, now is the best time to start living a healthier lifestyle to making smart decisions about your money, here are 10 ways on how you can start improving on the different aspects of your life in 2010.

Love your Job
Currently stuck in career limbo? If you've been working in the same company for some years now and you've yet to experience some growth in your career, try to analyze what you've been doing wrong to be put in this situation. Are you always late? Do you have good working relationship with your colleagues? Do you love your job? These are just some of the questions that you should ask yourself – and make sure to give an honest answer, so you’ll know what you need to improve on regarding your career. If you are feeling a bit demoralized at work because you weren’t promoted or you feel like your career is going nowhere, there are lots of ways for you to work around those problems as long as you enjoy what you are doing. If you love your job, that should serve as enough motivation for you to make concrete actions to become a better employee. Start being more on time, be more confident to take on different
responsibilities at work, avoid checking your facebook account while in the office, it’s really all up to you.

Be a better friend

It’s always important to cherish the relationships that we have with other people. If you’ve been too busy with your career or love life to spend time with your friends lately, make sure to at least stay connected with them through phone, text, e-mail, etc. even if you don’t get to meet up often, at least stay updated on what’s happening with each other’s lives that it’ll be a lot easier to catch up.

Travel more

Whether it’s abroad or here in the Philippines, make an effort and explore more this 2010. Aside from helping you to de-stress from work, traveling is also a great opportunity for you to learn new things, become more open-minded to
trying something new (food, activities, etc.), and be inspired. Hopefully your wonderful experience during travels will have a positive effect on your daily life as well – from your work to improving your relationship with your loved ones, friends etc. if you’re feeling adventurous, why not go on a solo trip this year? It’ll teach you to become more independent and you can use this time to develop better relationship with yourself.

Love your family

Just like your friends, it’s important to always cherish the time that you get to spend with your family. This year, make an effort to spend more quality time with your parents and siblings by going on trips, having more “family time”, and just try your best to be nicer to them. No matter how busy you get, you should never neglect an opportunity to make your loved ones feel how important they are to you.
Always be on time

Whether it’s beating a deadline or just being on time for work or your other commitments, make it a habit to put more effort on being on time with whatever it is that you do, if you’re the kind of person who tends to oversleep in the mornings, then start t look for ways on how you can improve on your sleeping habits to make it easier for you to wake up early in the morning. If you’re used to blaming your tardiness on the bad traffic, learning to manage your time better as well as making use of different modes of transportation will help you solve the problem.

Have more “Me-Time”

Are you always running yourself ragged at work or do you have the tendency to always not put other people’s needs before your own? While it’s not wrong to work hard or be
helpful, do remember that too much of anything is always bad. If you’ve been spending way too much time at work and it’s already getting you all stressed out or your loved ones have become too dependent on you that you rarely have time for yourself, take a step back and start learning the value of having “Me-time”. Whether it’s treating yourself to relaxing spa treatment once a month or taking up a new hobby, always make sure that you are still able to take care of your own wellbeing in spite of the many different responsibilities that you have going on. This will keep you from breaking down especially when you’re under a lot of stress.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

If you are the type who gets easily stressed or worried even with the simplest things, make a conscious effort to break this bad habit by learning to not sweat the small stuff. It’s normal to
not always have things going your way, so you should learn to better deal with it by not worrying too much. Aside from being bad for your health and wellbeing, worrying too much will also keep you from making better decisions about how to solve sticky situations.

Make smart decisions with your money

Whether it’s finally investing on life insurance, saving30 percent of your earnings or taking on extra work, it’s high time that you become more responsible with your money. Aside from having something saved up for a rainy day, making smart decisions will also keep you from getting saddled with debt.

Get healthy

Just like what we’ve been talking about for the past two weeks, living  a healthier lifestyle need not complicated. Simple things like taking the stairs instead of the
elevator or cutting back on sweets can already do your body a lot of good. You just have to be really dedicated to your goals so you‘ll be able to overcome temptations that may come your way.

Pray more

There's nothing wrong or hard about making time to pray – whether it be to say praise, give thanks, or ask for help. It only takes a few minutes and you can practically do it anywhere.