Are you headed where you want to go?

As we approach the year’s end, it is certainly a time for celebration, rest and renewal. How I look forward to the days at home with family, and extended visits with loved ones less frequently seen. I find that I am resting physically, but also mentally, as if storing up new capacity for the upcoming challenges of the New Year.

But during this same stretch of time, I feel that it is vital for me and, perhaps, for you to do more than simply take our foot off the accelerator of life. We must also take some time to look at the map, measure our progress on life’s journey, and take another look at our short and long term destinations.

In my life and business, which are inextricably interwoven – a true latticework of activity – I am enormously blessed with this year of adventure, travel, connections, and opportunities. This year I made many new friends, worked with incredible partners, traveled to fantastic places, and delivered some of my best work to date.

And yet, I sense that my life and business are at a new crossroads, where in the coming year my team and family will elevate our reach and move boldly from the success we have enjoyed toward a new significance. What I desire strongly is to truly help people in meaningful and enduring ways to transform their lives and live with abundance, joy, and freedom. Of course, I will continue to deliver my keynote presentations, but beyond that, I want to continue to serve as a guide, coach, mentor, and example to the people I encounter, helping them implement what we learn together to make very real, lasting improvements to their lives.

And the most exciting part of it – we have a plan to make this happen! Stay tuned for more news as it happens.

I will continue to challenge myself physically, stretching my skills in new directions. For me, longevity, dexterity, flexibility and physical strength are an essential part of my makeup. As I get older, my intent is not simply to maintain my abilities, but to improve them. As I teach audiences, there is no such thing as “maintaining” one’s position in life. You are either going forward (growing, learning and improving) or going backward (declining and losing ground). Staying where you are is an exhausting exercise in fighting the natural progress of life.

2013 will also be the year of my third book! I am well along in the process of developing a new body of work, along with a good friend who is coauthoring with me. This will be a great new addition to the work that we do.

How about you? As you approach the end of the year, here are seven questions to consider:

1. Looking back on the year, what have you learned? What experiences, trials, lessons, and have successes have you experienced, and what lessons have you taken from these encounters?
2. How are you personally different now than you were at the start of the year?
3. Are you happy with the direction your life is taking? If not, why not, and what are you going to do about it? If yes, than how will you continue this trajectory and build on your momentum?
4. Are the things that were most important to you still as meaningful, or are there other ambitions that are more important now?
5. How do you want to grow/change in the coming year? Consider growth in terms of the five spheres of life: work, relationships, health, spiritual growth, and personal interests.
6. What are the actions you must initiate and sustain on a regular basis in order to accomplish those changes?
7. How must you restructure your daily activity in order to be successful in this pursuit?

The end of the year – any year – is certainly a time of reflection. We must make space and time to do that, instead of just continuing headlong in the direction we happen to be moving. Be honest bold and brave enough to assess where you are headed and make adjustments that will take you toward a more desirable, exciting, and purposeful destination.

I wish you the happiest of holidays, and joyous New Year, and the clarity and conviction to pursue your highest self.