From reading about your challenges, your humorous moments and your disappointments, I'm keenly aware that many of you believe the best thing about 2009 is seeing it (finally) in your rear view mirror.
If ever there was a year my dear readers deserve wisdom, comfort and solid advice to make the New Year truly new, it would be now.
So here are my top hits of advice for the new year. May it find you unwrapping opportunities in your workplace and beyond!
1. Do not beat yourself up when you feel bad. The only thing worse than a difficult situation is feeling crappy about feeling crappy.
2. Use your bad moods as motivation to take the risks you are avoiding. I look at it this way: what have I got to lose when I'm feeling really awful. I've already hit bottom emotionally.
3. The beauty of hitting bottom is you have nowhere to go but up.
4. Make a list of risks you are avoiding because you are afraid of failure, rejection or looking foolish. You could continue to stay in familiar misery in 2010 or you can sign up for the anxiety (and excitement) of doing something new.
5. When you feel really stuck, try doing anything differently. You don't need a guarantee of success to get unstuck, just a willingness to fail with enthusiasm. Keep in mind that many successful people became successful because of what they learned from failure.
6. If you wish you had a guru, look no further than the challenges you currently have in your life. Pretend your problems are a classroom. Pretend everyone who is driving you crazy is being paid to help you learn something. Make up a theory about what you are being encouraged to learn (hint: the answer "to be miserable" is never the truth).
7. On a bad day, you may think everyone else has 90 percent of the power. The truth is you have at least 50 percent of the power (even on a bad day). The challenge is that power only comes with accountability. To get power or freedom, you have to be able to see your contributions to your problems and be willing to change.
8. Another truth is that it is enlightened, evolved and necessary to whine sometimes. We all start problem solving by venting all the ways in which we are the victims of an unfair universe. The problem is getting stuck in venting and not moving into problem solving.
9. There is no mentor, boss, spouse or guardian angel that is more capable of being your advocate in and out of the workplace than you. If you abdicate the sacred role of lobbying for your own well-being, the vacuum created will be filled with everyone else's agendas. You will not enjoy this experience!