Top 10 Ways to Make 2016 Your Best Year Yet from Talane Miedaner (giveaway)

Disclosure/Disclaimer: I received this product, free of charge,from Paper and Packaging Board, for blog posting purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it

January is over and I wouldn't be surprised if most of your January made resolutions are too!

groundhog day always seems to signal an end doesn't it?

Course for us here in Louisiana, an early Mardi Gras season pretty much means a death knell to any diet resolutions, sigh...

Did you know that according to a recent Forbes article, more than half of all resolutions are discarded within six months, and 25 percent of resolutions are broken within the first week!

OUCH!

But our friends over at Paper & Packaging decided to see what could be done to help people to keep their resolutions! We may be a technical society nowadays, but paper still connects us all in meaningful ways, and it can be the key to making success resolutions.

Professional life coach and bestselling author Talane Miedaner has teamed with Paper & Packaging, for the Paper & Packaging – How Life Unfolds™ campaign, to share ways that paper can help keep resolutions in check for you this year!

So let's check out some of the great tips from our friend, Talane Miedaner!

Talane Miedaner’s Top 10 Ways to Make 2016 Your Best Year Yet

Courtesy of Pixabay

1. Eliminate pesky annoyances and petty tolerations.

Get rid of the black gunk around the bathtub, box up that pile of old magazines and recycle it, get the worn-out heels on your shoes fixed, replace the cracked rear view mirror, etc. Most people have 60–100 of these annoyances (I think I'd have to agree with that!). All these little things drain our energy, leaving us with no energy for our bigger, more exciting projects. Make a list of them and start checking them off today. (And when you complete a list, it always gives you a great feeling, too, right?)

2. Instead of New Year’s resolutions, you might find it more effective to set a theme for the

year and create a vision board with your wishes, hopes and dreams.

Clip out images that represent your dreams from postcards and magazines, or print them from online and glue them on poster board or cardboard, and voila, you have a personal vision board for the year! Hang it on the inside of your wardrobe, so you’ll see it every day as inspiration. (don't cheat and try to Pinterest it! You need to SEE it everyday!)

Courtesy of Pixabay

3. Write daily in a journal. And I mean tried-and-true one with real paper.

Why not digital?

Because there is something magical about the physical act of putting pen to paper. And there is also something wonderful about having a set of journals as a record of the history of your life. You’ll be much more likely to pick up real journals and peruse them on odd occasions. Journaling is one of the quickest and most effective ways to become more creative in every area of your life. (plus they can be a great memento for your kids when you're gone!)

4. The latest research shows that the secret to losing weight and staying fit is not to set a big goal, but to focus on little habits that you can incorporate into your daily routine for the rest of your life.

Simple, easy and daily are the keys to making lasting health changes. Shoot for making one small habit change a month instead of going for a massive overhaul (which is doomed for failure due to human nature). Check out my free New Year’s Evolution program here for a list of small habit changes.

Courtesy of Pixabay

5. One trick to making a new habit stick is to make a visual reminder to trigger it daily.

For example, put a sticky note on your bathroom mirror with the word Floss! to remind you to floss your teeth. And put the floss right next to your toothbrush. After a month, you’ll have this habit ingrained and can remove the sticky note and focus on the next habit. Another technique is the gold star trick. We are more likely to stick with a new habit if we reward ourselves! (give yourself a manicure or other special treat at the end of the month is you reach 20 stars, for example)

6. One of the easiest ways to attract new, improved people and opportunities into your life is to make space for them.

Clear out the old stuff that no longer applies. Load cardboard boxes with the stuff that no longer gives you joy. Yes, clear out everything that doesn’t give you joy, and you’ll feel light and free. (it may be hard to let go, but once you do, you'll wonder why you had kept it so long..)

Courtesy of Pixabay

7. The hardest stuff to discard is the sentimental stuff: photos and personal objects that have

special history. Here’s the good news: you can keep it as long as it still brings you joy.

Store things that give you happy memories (ticket stubs to the theatre, love letters, postcards, photos) in a beautiful box, scrapbook or photo album. Keep the best of the kids’ artwork in a special folio to protect it for years to come. (its hard to let go of every paper artwork they drew, but limit yourself and you'll find it's not so hard to choose) You may want to take collections and turn them into a special display or frame them.

8. A recent statistic showed that the vast majority of Americans aren’t saving nearly enough for retirement.

You can set up an automatic direct debit from your checking account every month to go into your IRA and invest in a low-cost, indexed mutual fund or ETF and effectively automate your retirement savings. (I use Vanguard.com, as it has the lowest cost in the industry, and fees matter more than you may realize.) (Another trick if you don't want to use IRAs in the beginning is to round up in your checkbook- if something is $7.56, make it $10, then at the end of the month, take those extra amounts and put them into a savings account. You might be surprised how quickly they can add up. And then once you are used to not having that extra money, it's easier to do the auto debit instead)

Courtesy of Pixabay

9. Get your will drawn up.

Again, another simple task that most of us postpone until it is too

late. If you have children who are dependent upon you, this is critical. (and even if you have one drawn up, does it need to be updated? Are the friends you listed as guardians still married? Have you decided someone else would be better now that your kids are older? These are things to think about!)

10. Be grateful.

When we are grateful for what we have, it is easier to attract more good into

our lives. The easiest way to practice gratitude is to write a thank-you note once a day. I like to do this at the end of every day. On my dressing table, I have a box of notecards, my address book and stamps. Not only do you get to be grateful, but you also get to appreciate others in your life. If you don’t know who to thank today, try the postman, the grocery store clerk and others who regularly make your life easier while rarely getting acknowledged for. (and as a friend recently said, that little note might be just the thing to pull that person out of a depression downfall they were heading to. One thought CAN make a difference!)

I bet these tips REALLY made you think, didn't they?

Most of them are SO SO easy to do, but we just tend to avoid them. But if you take that one step, then the other 9 will be just that easier to obtain!

You can learn some more great ideas, and find more ways to find success for yourself this year at www.howlifeunfolds.com !