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Sometimes the change we need is less about self-improvement and more about blasting out of a rut.

It’s all too easy to get caught in our comfort zones, doing the same ol’ thing in the same ol’ way with the same ol’ results. And while that might feel reassuringly comfortable, it can have a detrimental effect on our lives.

Not only is the lack of challenge ultimately de-energizing, it also limits our potential. Because growth and opportunity both lie beyond the borders of our comfort.

To bust out of the comfort zone trap, try aiming for a monthly stretch. Do one thing each month that stretches you beyond what’s easy, known, and comfortable.

What constitutes a stretch is going to be different for everyone, but some examples might include:

• Taking on a new project at work that takes you beyond what you know how to do.
• Reaching out to connect with three new people each week (this is especially a stretch if you’re a little shy or introverted).
• Starting a video podcast.
• Organizing an event.
• Traveling alone to a foreign country.
• Having a conversation in a foreign language you’re still learning.

Some of the monthly stretches might be one-shot occurrences (like organizing an event). Others might continue into the future (like starting a podcast).

As you stretch month after month, not only will it help keep you from getting stuck in the same ol’ rut, it will also build and strengthen your stretch muscles. You get more adept at stretching and trying new things. You get more comfortable being out of your comfort zone.

Committing to twelve stretch activities over the next year has the potential to make a positive impact in your life in a way that one goal to improve on January 1st never could.

What one stretch would you like to challenge yourself to?

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What if, instead of spending your days trying to improve and excel by “getting it right,” you treated life as a learning lab, full of experiments and discovery?

I’m a huge fan of the experimental approach to life. When we conduct an experiment, there is no right or wrong – only results and information you can apply as you move forward. It takes the pressure and judgment off and frees you to explore, learn, and grow.

One approach to experimental living that I’m a huge fan of is the 30-day experiment.

Instead of gritting your teeth and resolving to make a permanent change, you simply say, “What would happen if I ____ for 30 days?” For example, what would happen if I:

• Exercised 5 days a week?
• Wrote a daily gratitude journal?
• Told my partner something I appreciate about them every day?
• Wrote down something new I appreciate about myself each day?
• Stopped eating sugar?

Approach it with curiosity, wondering what will happen. What will you discover? You can take notes along the way, do a post-game review, or both. The key is that you have some kind of way to unpack what you’re learning.

While positive changes often do come about as a result of 30-day experiments, that’s not the goal. The goal is to give yourself a way to take action without saddling yourself with the binary judgment of success or failure.

Think about it. In an experiment, there is no success or failure. Only learning. For example, if you decide to do a 30-day meditation experiment, that learning could take a number of forms, such as realizing:

• I feel good when I meditate regularly.
• Sitting meditation isn’t for me. I need something more active, like a walking meditation or yoga.
• If I don’t meditate first thing in the morning, it’s not going to happen.
• If I just sit for a while without pressuring my brain to be quiet, my mind eventually starts to settle.

The goal isn’t to “meditate right,” or even to continue with the meditation practice after the 30 days is done (though doing it for 30 consecutive days is often enough to get people over the initial hump of trying to do something new and unfamiliar). It’s to do the experiment, unpack what there is to learn, and apply that learning to your life moving forward.

30-day experiments: Goldilocks-approved

The thing I love most about 30 day experiments is that they are big enough to notice their impact (as opposed to, say, cutting out sugar for two days), but not so big that their sheer size makes it feel daunting to stick with it. Not too much, not too little. Just right.

Thanks, Golidilocks.

Map your experiments

Interested? Then it’s time to map out the experiments for the coming year (don’t worry – nothing is set in stone. You can change them as insights and ideas unfold through the year).

Start by making a laundry list of things you’d like to explore over the coming year. Those might all be things associated with a specific goal (for example, with a goal of improving your health, your laundry list might include things to do with various aspects of diet, exercise, hydration, accountability, mutual support, etc.). Or it might cover a broad range of personal and professional growth topics.

Then identify specific experiments you can take action on – like keeping a thermos filled with herbal tea at your desk so you can drink enough water each day. Map out the year with a new experiment each month.

As you do the experiments, you’ll probably find that some of them you’ll want to continue (“I feel so much better when I get to bed by 10 and get enough sleep.”) some of them you’ll see a modified version that works better for you (“I hate going to the gym, but I love dancing!”), and some you’ll want to drop altogether.

Unpack the learning

The questions you ask to unpack the learning will be as varied as the experiments you conduct. But here are a few you can ask that apply to a broad range of possibilities.

• What am I learning as a result of doing this?
• What feels like it’s working?
• What effect is this having on me?
• What is making this difficult? How could I change that?
• What do I want to carry forward?
• What do I want to stop once the experiment is done?
• Is there a slightly different angle I could take with this that would make it easier/more natural/more effective?

Once you wrap up your 30-day experiment, you can decide what you want to carry forward, what you want to leave behind, then dive into the next one.

So how about you? What experiments would you try?

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If you’re like most people, New Year’s resolutions are a yearly well-intentioned but ultimately pointless ritual. You run with a full head of steam into the new year, fully committed to change for the better. But by the end of January, phhhttt – the air goes out of those tires.

One of the biggest reasons those resolutions don’t work is that we front load all our effort and intention to start the year off with a bang, and then expect that to sustain the change for the duration.

When we front load our change efforts, we often get an initial rush of inspiration and determination, followed by months at sea in the doldrums with no wind in our sails to keep that change going. We’re left to drift and hope the momentum of that initial launch is enough.

Chunk it down with New Month’s resolutions

Instead of making New Year’s resolutions this year, how about a different approach: New Month’s resolutions.

Rather than aiming for one big bang of positive change at the start of the year, give yourself the opportunity for change over and over and over. You could take a variety of approaches to making your New Month’s resolutions:

The build-a-goal approach

That might be a series of resolutions that build towards a larger goal. For example, if you want to have healthier habits, your January resolution might be to exercise at least three times a week, your February resolution might be to continue exercising while cutting out sugar, and March might involve continuing to build on those while eating the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.

The sampler platter approach

Or it might be a series of unrelated resolutions each month, giving you the stimulation of working towards something new. If even a percentage of those stick, you will have made more positive change than the average person who makes a resolution January first that fails by the end of the month.

The repetition repetition repetition approach

In this approach, you make the same resolution each month. This gives you twelve opportunities to build on it, rather than limiting yourself to one big hurrah (and then likely fizzle) at the beginning of the year. If you are doing well with it, this gives you the opportunity to reward and reinforce your efforts. If you have fallen off track, it gives you the opportunity to get back up on the horse and start riding again.

But wait! There’s more!

Finally, you’ll gain two more benefits from taking a more granular approach to change in the coming year: eliminating that New Year’s change overwhelm and giving yourself more opportunities for reinforcement.

Give overwhelm the heave-ho

When it comes to positive New Year’s change, it’s common for our eyes to be bigger than our stomachs (figuratively speaking). We see the potential for positive change, and then go overboard on committing to this change, and this change, and this change, and…

The result is that we bite off more than we can chew. And all those aspirations to make this year better than the last go straight out the window till next New Year’s.

When you take a more granular approach, you can still commit to those changes, but you’re able to spread them out over time, increasing both your ability to focus on each one and the likelihood that you will succeed.

Reinforcement wins

Speaking of success, one last benefit to taking a New Month’s / New Week’s resolution approach is that you have many more opportunities to experience it. And each experience of success can both fuel and reinforce further efforts for growth and change.

Not only does it give you more chances to feel successful in your ability to make positive changes, it also gives you more opportunities to celebrate those successes (a key piece of the puzzle in reinforcing both your belief in your continued success and your motivation to keep going).

Make 52 New Week’s Resolutions

While you’re chunking it down, why not take it even farther with 52 New Week’s resolutions?

You could do this in conjunction with the New Month’s resolutions idea (breaking those resolutions into weekly chunks that support them). This gives even more potential for frequent reinforcement, as well as smaller periods of time for you to wander off track unchecked.

It’s also a great way to treat the coming year as a sampler platter for positive change. You can dip your toe in a wide variety of positive changes. When you find one that feels good, just keep doing it, while continuing to play with other weekly resolutions.

The bottom line

The bottom line to all of this is that significant change seldom happens in one fell swoop. It grows over time. Relying on the wave of a magic wand at the beginning of the year to do the heavy lifting for creating change that sticks is a recipe for failure.

But when you chunk it down and pursue multiple resolutions over the course of the year, it’s easier to stay on track, keep focused, reinforce your success, and renew your efforts on a regular basis.

And that’s how change happens.

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One of the big problems with New Year’s resolutions is their one-shot nature. That’s not an issue if you are able to flip the switch and stick with the resolution, but for most people that approach leads to a burst of good intentions followed by another year where it didn’t quite stick.

What if you could flip that script on that? What if, instead of giving yourself one shot to succeed, you built that shot into each and every day.  What if, rather than one big hurrah you hope will change everything (but probably won’t), you took an approach that keeps bringing you back to your aspired-to change?

That’s what  setting a New Year’s theme can do.

The idea is simple. Pick a topic that you want to be a focus for your year. For example:

• Self-compassion
• Making a difference
• Healthy habits
• New professional skills
• Relationship communication

Broadly speaking, setting a New Year’s theme does a couple things. First, it gives you a year-long frame for exploration and learning around a single topic. And second, it kicks your reticular activating system (RAS) into gear, increasing your brain’s attention to and awareness of things that are relevant to that theme.

Year-long frame

When you have a frame over time, it gives you the opportunity to incorporate both learning and action into a focused, coordinated growth path.

There are a variety of ways you can weave your New Year’s theme into the fabric of your year. Broadly speaking, they fall into five main categories:

• Initial learning
• Action
• Experimentation
• Unpacking the learning
• Regular check-ins

Here are some examples of what each of those could contain

Initial learning

Your approach to learning could be as simple as buying and reading a few books related to your theme or as complex as creating a multi-resource, year-long curriculum that lets you do a deep dive.

• Books
• Classes
• Talks
• Videos
• Podcasts

Action

Taking your theme out of the conceptual into the real world takes action. For example:

• Developing a practice that supports the theme (e.g., a meditation practice, a gratitude practice, or a regular writing practice).
• Making a list of possible ways you can practice it and referring to that list regularly (think of it as a grab bag you can pick from).
• Taking action in pursuit of a theme-related goal.

Experimentation

This aspect boils down to, “What would happen if I _______?” Experimentation is inherently about both action and learning. The goal is not to achieve results. It is to get insight you can apply as you move forward (which in turn can be used in service of getting results).

Unpacking the learning

Every action, practice, or experiment carries with it the potential for learning. The key is incorporating a regular “post-game review” to harvest the insights and know-how.

Regular check-ins

Engaging with a single them throughout the year allows you to check in on a regular basis to see how it’s showing up in your life, where you’re doing well with it, and where you’re falling off track.

Hey! Pay attention to this! (…or, your Reticular Activating System at work)

Without getting too deep in the weeds of the neuroscience of it, the reticular activating system is a system in your brain that, among other things, tells you what to notice and what to ignore. Have you ever gone car shopping, then seemingly seen that make and model, or that color, everywhere you turn? It’s not that those cars have suddenly popped up overnight. It’s your Reticular Activating System (RAS) at work.

When you prime your brain to notice something, guess what? You start to notice it! As you continue focusing on your year’s theme, you will start to notice things associated with it and it will occupy an increasingly large space in your mind’s real estate.

In my own life, I have experienced an example of this any time I engage in a regular gratitude practice. When I do gratitude journaling on a regular, daily basis, at some point my brain starts to go, “Crap! There’s going to be a quiz – I better pay attention!” As a result, I start to notice more and more things, large and small, to be grateful for.

Your New Year’s theme can easily be integrated with some of the other alternatives to New Year’s resolutions I am exploring in this series. For example:

Your New Year’s theme could be the umbrella for the granular resolutions (New Month’s or New Week’s resolutions). It could guide the 30-day experiments you do. Or it could influence what you ask for in the monthly ask-and-receive challenge.

What theme would you choose?

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‘Tis the season for new year’s resolutions…

…or not.

Given the choice, I would pick “not.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against committing to change for the better – that’s how I make my living, after all.

It’s just that, as a tool for improvement and change, the broad sweeping flip-the-switch-and-change approach of New Year’s resolutions tends to be a recipe for failure. (Most people are lucky if their resolutions last until the end of January.)

Change is infinitely more likely to happen with repetition and reinforcement than with the single wave of a magic New Year’s wand. In the following posts, I want to offer some alternatives – granular, cumulative, evolutionary approaches to positive change that jive better with how we human critters actually make change that sticks.

Ultimately, the question boils down to what you really want. If you want immediate (if short-lived) gratification, then by all means go with the New Year’s resolution. But if you want to look back at the end of the year and see real change of substance, then take a cumulative approach that gives you the opportunity over and over to get back on the horse and ride.

If your goal is to make your life a better place to live, don’t cheat yourself by relying on the big bang of a New Year’s resolution. More often than not, that has a limited life span, and you’ll find yourself right back where you started next year.

Below are links to posts with five alternatives to New Year’s resolutions

• Give the year a theme
• Make twelve new month’s resolutions
• Do twelve 30-day experiments
• Do a stretch-a-month challenge
• Do twelve ask-and-receive challenges

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Do you habitually ask for help when you need it?

If you don’t, what effect do you suppose that is having? What effect is it having on what you are able to accomplish? What effect is it having on your well-being? What effect is it having on what’s even possible in your life?

How about receiving? How are you at opening yourself to receiving (in all its forms)?

The ask-and-receive challenge is about dialing up both your asking and receiving game.

Before I dive into the specifics of the challenge, let’s look at each of the pieces in turn.

Asking

For many of us, asking for help is one of the most daunting things we do. So daunting that the common solution is often just not to do it. “Nope, I don’t need help. Nothing to see here. Move along.”

But here’s the thing. You DO need help. I don’t care who you are, or what you’re doing, if you insist on doing it alone you’re cheating yourself (and the world) of what’s possible.

We humans are social critters. We need each other. A stoic do-it-yerself attitude (or an emotional martyr do-it-yerself attitude, for that matter) flies in the face of that.

What if you got in the habit of a) recognizing when you need help and b) asking for it? What doors might that open? What pain might that eliminate?

Receiving

The flip side of the self-inflicted obstacle of not asking is not receiving. Most of us are pretty good at giving. We love to be able to help. It feels good to give gifts. But when it comes to being on the receiving end of that equation, a lot of us kinda suck.

Every time you refuse to receive, you deprive someone of the opportunity to give. Giving and receiving is a cycle, like breathing. They’re both equally important parts of the equation (just try to breathe out and refuse to breathe in, and you’ll see what I mean).

Becoming more adept at receiving opens doors. It opens doors to support. It opens doors to reclaimed time. It opens doors to opportunities.

It also gives other people the opportunity to give. And for most of us, unless being a chronic over-giver has burned us out, giving feels good. Not only does it feel good, when people feel like they’re givers, it can sometimes make it easier for them to accept help when they need it (“I have enough ‘giving credits’ in the bank to cover this receiving – I guess it’s OK to accept it.”).

 So in a roundabout but real way, saying yes to receiving helps other people too.

The asking challenge

The ask-and-receive challenge is a way to pry yourself out of the idea that asking for and receiving help or other gifts is somehow unacceptable. It’s an opportunity to practice – month after month – both asking and receiving.

On the asking side, it’s about using the next year to get used to making requests. As you do that over and over, you start to expand your comfort zone to include various forms of asking for help.

To start, ask this one question on a regular basis:

What help do I need that I’m not asking for?

Look at your life in 360 degrees. It might be help at work, or at home. It might be a problem you have kept to yourself that you could use a sounding board for. Or it might be support in making a hard decision.

The list of things you could use help with, right now, is practically bottomless. That’s not any reflection on you. It’s a reflection on the interconnected nature of life as a human. We’re not meant to do it all ourselves. Whee-ha!

The more you ask yourself that question, the more you will recognize the places you are holding back from asking.

And that leads us to the next question. At the beginning of each month, take stock of your life – maybe dividing it into categories like work, family, finances, personal growth, etc. – and ask:

“What one thing can I ask for help with this month that would be a game changer?”

Or:

“What one thing can I ask for help with this month that would move the needle?”

It might be help figuring out a solution to a sticky problem. It might entail help taking some of the load of responsibilities at home off your shoulders so you have time to pursue a hobby or activity that adds richness and meaning to your life (or even just so you have time for better self-care). It could be asking for an introduction as you explore a business idea that inspires you.

The key is that the help you ask for does two things:

• Stretches your comfort zone: For some the very act of asking for any help might do this. For others, they might find that there are certain kinds of help, or certain requests that feel like a stretch.
• Makes a difference: Aim to put your finger on a request that would make a difference in your life. Maybe it frees up time. Maybe it eases an emotional burden. Maybe it gives you a stepping stone that brings you one step closer to a goal or dream that is important to you. Or it could open the door to greater connection. Whatever it is, the idea is to harness the magic of asking to move your life in a positive direction.

The receiving challenge

The “receiving” side of the challenge is much less proactive and more about simply saying yes (or thank you) when the opportunity arises, in ways both big and small.

“Can I pick something up at the store for you?”

Yes.

“Could you use some help figuring out how to set up that new web site?”

Yes.

“You have such a gift at _______.” (fill in the blank with your superpower)

Thank you.

“I love that sweater.”

Thank you.

You get the idea. Receiving is about both saying yes and not deflecting.

Every morning, make it a mantra to say, “Today I’m open to receiving.” Put sticky notes up as a reminder. Tell your friends what you’re doing so they can call you on it when you try to say no.

The goal is to both notice the opportunities to receive and make it more natural to do.

You can still give to your heart’s content. You can still be someone who helps and serves, if that’s your jam. But the more you open to receiving, the more your personal potential to thrive grows.

And that helps everyone. 

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With a year like 2020, it can be tempting to put it in the rear view mirror, hit the gas, and leave it far behind. But if you do, you’ll be cheating yourself.

You have already made the investment of a year of your life. You can either jump into the next year and never look back, or you can take some time to harvest the return on that investment – the insight, knowledge, and seeds for positive change you’ll find with a year-in-review exploration.

Below are some questions to get you started. There are waaaaaay too many to answer each one (trying to would be a great recipe for ending up saying, “Ah, screw it. Never mind.”). Instead, scan through the list and see which ones jump out. Pick your top ten (or five, or three) and dive in.

Keep in mind that this past year was a wild and woolly one, so approach your review with compassion. The point of this review is to harvest the learnings the year has to offer, not to judge your performance, achievements, or even the state of your life. Be kind to yourself as you explore.

On a related note, this list is based on year-in-review questions I have posed in the past. There are some questions – especially the ones about spending time with others – that might not feel as relevant as they might in an ordinary year. I’m leaving them in for those who might still find them valuable, but feel free to ignore them.

Finally, remember that this isn’t an assessment of how you “measured up.” It is simply a way to squeeze as much juice from the last year as you can so you can apply it to your future. There is as much to be learned from the negative elements as there is from the positive. Maybe more.

To consciously bridge between this review of the past and your life in the future, one helpful addition to any of these questions might be, “And how can I apply what I learned here next year?”

And now…drum roll, please…let the review begin!

Energy

What energized me? Why? What was it about it that felt so energizing?
What drained my energy? Why? What was it about it that drained my energy?

Positive Impact

How did I make a positive impact in the world?
Who did I help?
What opportunities to help did I miss that I could take advantage of in the future?
What was better because of me?
How did I have a positive effect on other people’s lives?

Negative Impact

How did I make a negative impact in the world?
How did I ignore the needs of others?
How did I have a negative effect on other people’s lives?

Positive aspects of your life

What am I grateful for?
What felt meaningful?
What really mattered?
How have I fed love in my life?
What were my successes?
What was my high point?
What am I proud of?
What choices did I make that left me feeling good about myself?
What aspects of my life did I embrace fully?
What would I like to carry forward into next year?

Negative aspects of your life

What were my failures? What can I learn from them?
What was my low point?
What am I ashamed of?
What choices did I make that left me feeling bad about myself?
What did I think mattered that didn’t really?
What felt empty and flat?

Supportive and uplifting approaches

What stories did I tell myself that supported being who and how I want to be?
How did I nourish myself (mentally, emotionally, and/or physically)?
What helped me be my highest self?
How did I feed a sense of hope?
How did I focus on what’s good in my life?
What habits or choices supported my physical well-being?
What habits or choices supported my emotional well-being?
What habits or choices supported my spiritual well-being?
How did I live from the heart?
How have I focused on what’s good in my life?
What habits helped me live the life I want to live?
If I could pick one thing (one thing I did, one way I responded, one change I made, etc.) that most reflects who I aspire to be, what would it be?

Limiting and unhelpful approaches

What limiting stories did I tell myself?
How did I ignore my own needs?
How have I fed fear in my life?
How have I focused on what’s wrong?
What negative reactions am I holding on to?
What hindered me from being my highest self?
What habits or choices worked against my physical well-being?
What habits or choices worked against my emotional well-being?
What habits or choices worked against my spiritual well-being?
What habits hindered me from living the life I want to live?
How did I compromise the future I want?
What habits hindered me from living the life I want to live?
What aspects of my life did I resist?

Receiving

How did I open myself to receiving?
What help did I need that I didn’t ask for?
What help was offered that I didn’t take?

Self-alignment

How did I spend my time? What does that say about what I actually value?
How did I spend my money? What does that say about what I actually value?
How did I live in sync with my values?
How did I live out of sync with my values?
How was I my authentic self?
How was I inauthentic?
How did I live with integrity?
How did I live out of integrity?

Challenges

What challenges did I face? What did I learn from them?
What tools did I gain from the challenges I faced that I can apply to facing future challenges?
If I faced the same challenge now, how would I do it differently based on what I learned?

Growth and change

How did I grow?
How am I different today than I was a year ago?
How is life different than it was a year ago?
How did I plant seeds for a positive future?
What change did I embrace fully?
What change did I resist?

Learnings

What did I learn from what went well?
What did I learn from what didn’t go well?
What did I learn from trying something new and succeeding?
What did I learn from trying something new and failing?

Your experience of yourself

How did I celebrate/acknowledge/reinforce my positive qualities?
What positive things about myself in the past year am I not fully acknowledging?
What am I judging about myself in the past year that I can let go of?
If the last year was a movie, what role did my character play? (the hero? the victim? the villain?) Why do I think that?

Who in my life

Who influenced me positively?
Who influenced me negatively?
Who helped me?
Who do I want to thank?
Who are the main people in my life? How did each one of them impact me positively?
Who was uplifting to be around?
Who was it draining to be around?
Who helped me believe in myself?
Who had a negative effect on my belief in myself?
Who encouraged me?
Who discouraged me?

Do-over

What would I do differently if I could do it over?
Who do I wish I had spent more time with?
Who do I wish I had spent less time with?
What do I wish I had spent more time doing?
What do I wish I had spent less time doing?
What community or group of people do I wish I had spent more time with?
What community or group of people do I wish I had spent less time with?
When did I say no that I wish I had said yes?
When did I say yes that I wish I had said no?

Spiritual

How did I walk my spiritual path?
How did I live my faith?
What helped me feel spiritually connected?
What made me feel spiritually disconnected?

More / Less

What do I wish I had had more of in the last year?
What do I wish I had had less of in the last year?

Connection

Where did I experience connection with people?
Where did I feel disconnected with people?
How did I reach out to connect with people?
How did I shut myself off from connection with people?
How did I feed positive, healthy relationships in my life?
How did I get in the way of positive, healthy relationships in my life?

Clarity, focus, and direction

Where did I feel like I had clear direction?
Where did I feel confused?

So there you have it! 111 questions to get the most out of the year you just lived. Which ones did you find most helpful? Are there any I didn’t include that you like to ask? Let me know in the comments. I would love to hear what you thought. 

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If you want a simple, easily doable way to both change your life for the better and feel more adept at navigating stressful times, pay careful attention to what you feed your mind.

One of the most common things that people do to feed (or perhaps more accurately, poison) their minds is mindless, habitual consumption of the news.

I say poison because what passes for “the news” in most of the media is really just a litany of everything that is wrong in the world. And feeding your mind a steady diet of what’s wrong not only colors your outlook on the world negatively, it can also make you feel more anxious, more depressed, and more hopeless.

It’s like opening up your head and pouring toxins into your brain that corrode your well-being.

Fortunately, with a little effort and intention, we can look beyond the standard junk news fare to find news that motivates, inspires, and uplifts us. It just takes a little (OK, a lot) more work to find it.

To make it easier, here are several news sources geared specifically to what’s good in the world, what’s working, and what’s possible.

Positive News Sources

Good News Network

“A clearinghouse for the gathering and dissemination of positive compelling news stories from around the globe.”

The Solutions Story Tracker
(more comprehensive list, by newest story first or by topic)

“The Solutions Story Tracker^® is a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems. We collect and tag every story, providing you with the ability to find coverage of effective or promising ideas and approaches…”

CNN Heroes

“Everyday people changing the world.”

The Daily Good

“The world is full of everyday heroes and true stories of transformation…DailyGood aims to shine a light on these stories and in doing so to change the nature of our conversations.”

Good News on Reddit

“The place for good news on Reddit! Share positive trends, constructive collaborations and inspiring, game-changing concepts are all welcome—and your regular feel-good news, too.”

Uplifting News on Reddit

“A place to read and share positive and uplifting, feel good news stories.”

Positive News for Change on Reddit

“Positive News for Change is a subreddit for news that celebrates world events promoting a better, happier, and more just world for all.”

MSN Good News

A compilation of positive news stories.

CNN: Impact Your World

Ways people are making a difference.

Tank’s Good News

Good news stories.

Today: Good News

“Inspirational, uplifting, funny and happy news, photos, videos and more.”

Canoe.com Good News

Good news on Canoe.com

Sunny Skyz

Positive news and inspirational stories.

DarynKagan.com

“Uplifting and Positive News”

CNN: The Good stuff

“Every Saturday, we’ll bring you the big headlines that make you smile, plus stories of fascinating discoveries, everyday heroes, inspiring movements and great things happening right in your backyard.”

The Week – Good News

“The week’s good news.”

Huffington Post: Impact

“Discover worthy causes, find ways to take action, and read truly inspiring stories. Hear from social good experts and share how you can make an impact.”

Good News Shared

Positive news stories.

Good News Movement (Instagram)

“Journalist-run page for GOOD NEWS. 0 politics. DM kind acts,good news,heroes.”

The Rooftop

“News worth shouting about.”

Positive News (UK based)

“Focusing on solutions, it reports on people and initiatives that are creating a sustainable, just and fulfilling world.”

Positive News (US based)

“We report news from around the world and right next door in the areas of peace, justice, planet, health, education, happiness and so much more.”

Good News – CBS Miami

Good news stories from the CBS affiliate in Miami

Good News – The Times of India

Good news stories in India

Solutions News (podcast)

“We spotlight solutions to local, national and global problems to shift the conversation towards what is possible and help our listeners reconnect to their inner optimists.”

[I originally compiled this list a few years ago for a post on my Ripple Revolution blog. In light of how much stress and anxiety people are feeling out there just now, I decided to update it and repost it here.]

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Want to change your life for the better in the new year? Tap into the big power of thinking small.

More specifically, take a lesson from the pointillists, the artists from a 19^th century school of painting who created their paintings by applying dots of color, rather than brush strokes.

When you look at the paintings up close, there is no rhyme or reason to it. It’s just a bunch of blobs of colors. But when you step back, an image emerges.

You can do the same thing with your life. Except instead of paint, the dots are small nuggets of whatever you want to experience more of.

For example, if you want to experience more meaning from making a difference, you can pay attention to the opportunities each day to have a positive impact. Or if you realize that you feel energized when you are in problem-solving mode, you can pay attention to the problem-solving opportunities that come up each day.

Taken individually, each of these “dots” don’t amount to much. But the more you consciously add them to the canvas of your life, the more they start to form a picture. In aggregate, your experience starts to change.

Why take a pointillist approach?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of coaching, it’s that if you want to maximize the potential of making positive change actually happening, you need to make it easy. Take away as much of the friction and resistance as possible.

That’s why I love this approach. Let’s say you want to experience a greater sense of meaning in your life. If the only approach you consider is thinking big, that’s likely to feel like you need to make wholesale change.

And while wholesale change can be exactly what some people need, it can also limit your options, preventing you from seeing the value and potential in positive change at a more micro level.

But if you take a pointillist approach, not only are there more opportunities to experience meaning each and every day, there is more potential for that meaning to permeate your life.

To make it simple, let’s use that example of finding meaning in making a difference. Once you recognize the importance to you of making a difference, you can look for opportunities to do that every day.

They don’t have to be big and noteworthy. They can be as small as offering a piece of advice, helping someone carry a load to their car, or stopping and talking to a homeless person like an equal (because you are).

In fact, the little opportunities are where the big power is, because they don’t take a lot of investment of time and effort. They become easily-applied dots of meaning scattered throughout your days.

The more you pay attention to those opportunities, the more you start to see them. And the more you act on those opportunities, the more they start to merge and form a theme of “I make a difference.”

Not only that, as watching for and acting on chances to be helpful starts taking up more of your mental real estate, you start to shift how you see yourself and how you show up in the world. It goes from action to identity. From what you do (I make a difference) to who you are (I am someone who makes a difference).

Savoring

It’s not just the number of things you notice and act on that will have an impact. It’s also the quality of your attention.

Unless you consciously reinforce the positive experience, you’re missing out on a lot of the positive effect those “dots of paint” can have, both individually and collectively.

Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson talks about a practice he calls “taking in the good.” The idea is simple. Any time you have a positive experience, instead of just moving on to what’s next like we typically do, pause to savor it. Not long, maybe 20 or 30 seconds.

Over time, that wears a deeper groove in your brain (I know, not exactly a scientific description) from those good experiences.

How you can use it

You can take a pointillist approach to anything positive you want to incorporate more fully into your life. For example:

Feeling more energized

My definition of passion is “the energy that comes from bringing more of you into what you do.” One way I help people figure out how to do that is reverse engineering what they love to find the underlying themes of why they love it.

When they understand the underlying characteristics that tend to be there when they’re energized and engaged (the reasons why they love what they love), they can look for more opportunities to experience them.

For example, when I aim that reverse engineering process at the things that energize me, one of the big underlying characteristics that shows up nearly everywhere is a sense of exploration and discovery.

If I were looking at a career change, I could ask, “What kinds of careers involve exploration and discovery? But I can use it on a day-to-day level as well. Applying the pointillist approach, I could ask, “Where are the opportunities to experience more exploration and discovery?”

And once again, part of the magic comes from noticing and savoring. The more I notice and savor, the stronger its presence in how I experience my days.

Greater sense of connection

Another way you might apply it is to feel a greater sense of connection with the people around you. That could be with your immediate family and loved ones, your friends, your colleagues, even with people you meet randomly throughout your day (like a grocery store checkout clerk).

If you were taking a pointillist approach, you might ask, “What creates that sense of connection?”

The answer to that goes way beyond the scope of this post. With people in your intimate circle, it might be making it a point to tell them how you feel about them every day, or how they have had a positive effect on your life, or what you admire about them. Or taking the time to be curious, or celebrating their everyday accomplishments.

With friends, it might be about reaching out to connect more often, even if just for a quick phone call. With colleagues, it might be getting curious about what motivates them, or giving sincere compliments for something you see them do well.

If you have ever felt a sense of connection with someone you have just met, you know that you can even find connection with strangers (read about Barbara Fredrickson’s concept of positivity resonance for a better understanding of the opportunity and potential there).

Parting thought

Wrapping up, let me say that when I encourage you to think small, I’m not saying you shouldn’t think big as well. I’m suggesting that when the change you aspire to is limited to the big-thinking variety, you limit your ability to experience more of that positive change in the here-and-now.

This year, maximize your potential and possibility by thinking big AND thinking small.

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What if, instead of asking, “what do I want to change this year,” you asked, “What’s my one-year vision?”

The vision might be about, for example, something you want to do, an idea you want to set in motion, who you aspire to be, or a difference you want to make.

There are no rules for what your vision should look like (hey, it’s your life – you get to be the boss of it), but I do have a suggestion.

Make it something that inspires you. Make it something that engages you and pulls you forward. Make it something juicy enough that you want to dive in and keep engaging it – not just on January 1^st, but on all the way down the road on December 1^st (and 2^nd, and 3^rd…).

Think of a one-year vision as a way to try out a test vision for the bigger picture. It’s a way of exploring, “What do I want to do with my life?”

You might have a vision that has been lurking in your mind, just waiting for you to give it a chance to show up in real life. If that’s the case, fantastic! But if you find yourself scratching your head with no idea what that vision might be, the best place to start is the mighty question mark.

You can explore vision possibilities through questions like:

• What idea that inspires me have I not taken action on?
• What have I done that I want to build on?
• What do I want more of? What do I want less of?
• What do I want to achieve?
• What difference do I want to make?
• What impact do I feel called to have?
• Who do I want to be?
• What do I want my life to look like?
• What causes do I care about?
• What do I want my legacy to be this year?
• Who do I want to help/make a difference for?
• What is missing right now that I could add?
• What do I care about? What do I value?
• Who do I want to become? e.g., someone who ________ (takes action, builds relationships, helps people)
• What would it inspire me to do?
• Who do I want to do it with?
• If this were my last year on earth, what would make it worth living?
• What do I regret not doing/achieving/creating last year?
• What body of work do I want to create? Why?
• Looking back at the end of the year, what contribution would make me feel fulfilled?

A holistic look

Another avenue of exploration could be brainstorming the possibilities in different parts of your life. For example:

• Making a difference
• Work-related achievements
• Relationships
• Finances
• Health

That’s not to say you should have a whole bundle of visions to juggle. Choose one thing to focus on. But as you do, you will probably find that there are other aspects of your life that feed into that.

Let’s say you have an idea for a small-scale program you want to create to make a difference. Maybe you love putting on dinner parties, and you decide to blend that with your desire to make the world a better place by putting on a quarterly series of dinners as fundraisers for your favorite cause.

Your vision for the year involves putting on the dinner parties, engaging people in making a difference, and doing good with the funds you raise.

When you look at it holistically through the lens of, “What contributes to this vision,” you’ll probably find that many parts of your life affect it. Your health, for example. If you are making health decisions that leave you feeling more energized and less drained, you will have more inner resources to put into creating the dinners, reaching out to people, working with others, etc.

Same with your finances. You might realize that the vision would be better served if you cut out a few expenses that do little to add to the quality of your life and channeled that money to supporting the vision.

You might realize that there is a relationship component to the vision, as you reach out and connect and build community around the idea.

That’s just an example I made up, but I think it paints a good picture of how many things can feed into one central theme.

The vision is a container

The vision isn’t just about the outcome. It’s also about the container it creates for action and growth. As you start breathing life into that vision, it shines a light on questions like:

• What do I want to do/achieve/create?
• Who do I need to be in order to do that?
• How do I use my existing strengths, knowledge, and abilities to get there?
• What changes will help me get there?
• What habits can I develop?
• What am I learning from pursuing this vision? What do I want to build on? What do I want to let go? What do I want to change?

Bringing the vision to life

When you have your vision, it’s time to bring it to life. Again, questions are a great place to start. For example

• What steps/actions do I need to take?
• What habits would support this vision??
• What New Month’s / New Week’s resolutions would support this vision?
• Who can I reach out to?
• Who could I collaborate with?

Any of the other ideas in this series on New Year’s resolutions alternatives could also be put to use in service of the vision.

A parting thought

The coming year represents a significant portion of the total ticks on the clock you have available in your life. Tapping into the power of a vision can inspire you, focus your efforts, and bring you back when you wander off track. It can give you a positive perspective when you get lost in the negative thought-loops of the egosphere. And it can give you an answer – for this year anyway – to the age-old question, “Why am I here?”

What is your vision this year?

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