8 Steps to Achieving Your Goals in 2017

                               

There is much wisdom to be gleaned from 2016. Reflect back both where you thrived and where gaps in your systems undermined your growth. To grow your businesses in 2017, you must grow yourself. Think bigger, confident that you can always do better if you set active goals.

1. Set an intention to grow.

Never assume you or your business will automatically grow. Just because time goes by, it doesn’t mean you are getting better in time. You do not grow through the simple act living and doing your job. To expand yourself and the success of your career be purposeful and deliberate about growing. Seek a career or personal development coach and get advised on how to take your life and business to the next level. Be willing to stretch yourself and think about who it is you want to be and examine the ways to expand your success.

2. Create an expansion plan. 

Whenever you start something new, you never really know how you are going to accomplish what you want to accomplish. This is when confusion and doubt step in. Creating an expansion plan helps to ward off these two emotional predators. When you are clear in what you want, the world responds back to you with clarity and opportunity. Directions fall into place when you make your plan clear.

Plan your growth deliberately. It is up to you to decide where you need or want to grow. Choose what you want to learn and how you want to expand. Set your achievement pace and follow through at all cost. In 2017 become someone capable of accomplishing the big life and business goals you set. Write your goals down, make them real, repeat them out loud morning and night, stay on pace and go forward with an unwavering determination to take your business to the next level.

3. Now is the time.

In 2017 push fearful thoughts such as “It’s not the right time” to the side. When fear cows you into complacency and begin to talk you out of a great idea, step forward by doing what you intend to do, do it now and every single day. For authentic and measureable expansion to take place you must work for it with relentless fervor. Stay in front of the eight-ball. Act as quickly on things as you should. Do not allow your intentions or passions diminish with the passage of time. The longer you wait to do something what should be done now, the greater the odds are you will not do it.
Do it now, do not wait until you think you are “ready.” Ready never comes and you lose opportunities waiting to act.

4. Expect mistakes.

Every expansion plan has flaws. Expect to make mistakes along the way. Do not let your fear of making mistakes stop your desires for growth. To get the kind of expansion you are reaching for it will require discovering the flaws in your expansion plan. These flaws help you to know exactly what in your plan or in yourself needs fine tuning. These mishaps are your greatest gifts.
Push through any fears you have of messing up. Expect mistakes to be made every day. Get used to making them. Allow them to guide you in a more successful direction. Mistakes are a welcome sign that you are moving in the right direction. Learn to fail forward.

5. Enjoy the mystery.

Plans for expansion bring up insecurity. Any time you venture into the unfamiliar you may feel you need to have to have the perfect plan to start. This is a false belief that will hold you back from starting. Part of expanding is dealing with the unknown. Expansion doesn’t happen because you’ve developed the perfect plan.
You cannot perfectly plan the unknown. The best way to find your way is to start expanding and see where the journey takes you. It is like driving on an unfamiliar road in the dark. As you continue driving a little more of the road is revealed a bit at a time giving you the direction you need. To see more of the road you have to keep driving.

6. Stay motivated.

As you plan for personal and professional expansion it may feel overwhelming, not worth it or not possible. Do not allow feelings of overwhelm to decrease motivation. Procrastination is a poor coping skill. Goals cannot be reached if you allow your plans to be stifled. Just start.
Motivation is not something you have it is something you do. When you are actively engaged in expanding the potential of your business, motivation naturally builds upon itself in each successful step forward. You have to stick with things to see their benefit. Stick with your plan for one year. It is a process of gestation to birth. You will fall in love with the process as you see the gains you have made when you look back

7. Focus on your growth.

Make the decision to expand your business and do not let fear of failure or comparison dissuade you from implementing your plan. There are undoubtedly “better” and more successful businesses out there. There are stronger, more successful people. Instead of fearing comparison with these people, do all you can to spend time around them. Take inventory on what they did to succeed at the higher levels. True leaders are willing to share their experiences and ideas. Learn from the best how to create your best.
Getting out of your comfort zone is always a challenging and difficult transition, but always well worth it.

8. Expect challenge.

Expansion is just that. It is stretching, bursting, hurting, growing and accelerating. Never get into the idea your expansion plans should be easier than they are. Expect them to be arduous. Success doesn’t come easily or quickly. Climbing to the top has to be intentional. It doesn’t just happen. You have to create your own luck and opportunities.

Written by Sherrie Campbell

10 New Year’s Resolution Ideas for 2017

What will you write for the next chapter of your life? It’s entirely up to you. Take the first step to make sure that it’s a
goodgreat chapter by setting New Year’s resolutions. You’ll find 10 ideas for your New Year’s resolutions, below.

1. Start a Meditation Practice.
There are scientific studies that show the many benefits of meditating. To name just a few, meditating helps to improve your mood, it reduces stress, it lessens anxiety, and it even increases your brain’s grey matter — which is involved in muscle control, sensory perception, decision making, and self-control. In addition, once you get the hang of it,meditating is made easy to do.
2. Learn Something New Each Day.
Set the resolution to learn something new every day in order to have a better understanding of the world and how it works. Fortunately, the internet makes it incredibly easy to learn new things.
3. Pick Up a Hobby.
Did you know that having a hobby is good for you? Hobbies can lower your stress levels, boost your brain power, improve your ability to focus, and more. Therefore, in 2017, start a new hobby.
4. Play More.
Play is an important source of relaxation and stimulation for adults. In addition, it can make you more creative and productive. Bring more play into your life by making it a New Year’s resolution.

5. Eat Fewer Calories.
There are many reasons why most of us should set a resolution of eating fewer calories. The most obvious reason is to lose weight. After all, carrying excess weight puts us at a greater risk of a whole range of serious health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.
With all of the contradictory information out there on what to eat, sometimes it’s hard to decide what to do when you want to lose weight. I try to keep things simple. When I want to lose weight, I just eat less. I recommend you do the same. If you gained weight in 2016, resolve to eat smaller portions in 2017.
 Try eating until you’re satisfied, instead of full. Also, eat more slowly to allow your body to send you cues about fullness.

Other reasons for eating less are ethical–that is, social justice, animal rights issues, and environmental concerns–but we won’t go into those here.
6. Write a Business Plan.
Make 2017 the year you stop thinking about starting a business and you start taking action –it’s OK if it’s a small business on the side. The first step to take is to write a business plan. Once you get your ideas down on paper, you’ll be that much more motivated to turn those ideas into reality.
7. Move More.
It doesn’t matter what you choose to do: join a sports team; get a pedometer and take at least 10,000 steps a day; get up every 20 minutes and stretch; or join a dance class. Just move! Living a sedentary life dumbs you down, it makes it more likely that you’ll be overweight, and it puts you at a higher risk of depression.
Think of the following quote from the movie "Madagascar" : “Move it nice and sweet and sassy, alright!”
8. Read More Books.
I read 30 books in 2016, and I’m glad I did. The time I spent reading was enjoyable, and I feel a sense of accomplishment since all of the books I chose to read are recognized as “literature”.
I’ll definitely be reading lots of books in 2017, and I encourage you to do the same. I
9. Be  More Grateful.
If you haven’t climbed aboard the gratitude bandwagon yet, this is the year to do it. There are studies that shows that gratitude can make you 25% happier. Think about that for a second: 25% happier!
Being grateful will also help you to overcome adversity, improve the quality of your sleep, and allow you to get along better with others. For next year, resolve to be more grateful.
10. Stop Procrastinating.
If you didn’t achieve your goals this year, procrastination was the likely culprit. Make 2017 the year  you stop procrastination and start getting things done. This will help you to ensure that you won’t be sitting there at the end of next year wondering why you never got around to working on your goals.

Written by  Marelisa Fabrega
 Marelisa Fabrega is a lawyer and entrepreneur. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., as well as a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center.

China Opens World's Highest Bridge

                               

A bridge in China suspended over a 1,854-foot gorge became the "world's highest" when it opened to automotive traffic, reports said.

The Beipanjiang Bridge took three years to build, cost more than $146.7 million dollars, and stretches to be 4,396 feet long. Its four-lane roadway sits nearly two thousand feet over the Beipan River, which it's named after, to connect the Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in southwest China, it reported. It surpassed the 1,837-foot-tall Sidu River Bridge for its world record title.

The Beipanjiang Bridge is part of the 2,115 mile Hangrui Highway which connects Hangzhou to the China-Myanmar border crossing in Ruili. Construction actually finished on the bridge September 10, but the massive sky-scraping overpass only opened to vehicular traffic today.

Though the Beipanjiang Bridge might be the highest bridge in the world, the world's tallest bridge is still the Millau viaduct in France which tops out at 1,125 feet, the BBC reported.