Make 2017 Your Best Year Yet

This past year has truly been the best year of my life. I mean my goodness, I am just reflecting on all the incredible things that happened and there are so many. But the key to my great year was not just the awesome things that happened, but my attitude about them. It takes time to truly find yourself and love who you are. I've been working on this for a while, my whole life in fact ;). Though I've been close the past couple years, I can honestly say that this past year is the year that I became 100% content with who I am. And wow. What a great feeling!

Wherever you may be at in this beautiful journey called life, here are my keys to making 2017 the best year yet.

#1. Do Something You Really Want to Do - What is it that you have always dreamed of doing? Is it taking a dream vacation to somewhere far away? Is it quitting your job and starting your own business? Is it going skydiving? Hiking across the Smokey Mountains? Trying out for a singing competition? Whatever your dream is, I am telling you right now , DO IT! Even if it may seem absolutely crazy or impossible. You can make it happen. For me, my dream has always been and will forever be to travel. My goal in life is to travel to every continent at least once. I'm a college kid, I don't have much money. But I decided to take hold of my dream and make it happen. I worked and I saved and I planned. And I did it. Let me tell you folks, my dream trip of going to Europe was the best time of my entire life. Every single day I thanked God that I was in Europe on an amazing adventure. I often looked around and couldn't believe how crazy blessed I was. I had this experience because I made it happen. And so can you! To make 2017 the best year yet, please please do something you really want to do. Plan, save up, work for it, do whatever you need to do to make it happen. You will not regret it.

#2. Be Content Right Where You Are At - This may sound like a contradiction after my first bit of advice, but hear me out - I think it is very important to have both contentment and drive to do something more with your life. I have been trying to work on my contentment for many many years. And it is, to this day, still something I struggle with. In life there will always be times you want something more than you have: a relationship, a better job, more down time, less stress, more money... the list goes on and on. Here's the thing. In life there will always be reasons to complain. This is not a perfect world. That comes later, in heaven with Jesus. It's important that you focus not on what is going wrong in your life, but what is going right. One of my favorite quotes is:

You are responsible for your contentment, here and now.

#3. Do Something Out of Your Comfort Zone - When I first started planning for Europe, I tried everything to get someone to come with me. I absolutely did not want to travel by myself. It was way out of my comfort zone. As most of you know, things didn't work out quite as I had first planned and I ended up traveling solo for 10 days of my trip. And you know something? That ended up being the best part of my trip! I can't even begin to tell you just how many things I learned about myself just on those 10 days of being by myself. That was probably the greatest learning experiences of my young life. I encourage you to do something that may be out of your comfort zone. For it is the moments we feel most vulnerable that we learn the most about ourselves.

#4. Make Your Own Happiness - In life you can always point fingers and put the blame for your unhappiness on something or someone else. Stop doing that. Happiness begins with you. Every single morning when you wake up, you make the choice whether you will have a good day or a bad day.

#5. Look for the Beauty in Each Moment - Another quote that I love is:

Find that good thing, focus on it, and forgive the bad. You will be so much happier if you focus on the million happy and wonderful moments that happen in a day rather than focusing on the several bad things.

#6. Love Yourself - In the words of Justin Bieber, "You should go and love yourself" - in a good way! One of the most valuable things I learned this year was after reading an article that my wonderful sister, Ruth shared with me. It taught me to not obsess over things you are trying to change to the point of damaging other, more important, aspects of life. You can find the article here - I would really recommend reading it. New Year's is the prime time for making a life change, most often times involving getting into better shape or eating healthier. While I think this is a great thing (and plan to accomplish these same goals in the new year), it also can be a bit discouraging to your self-esteem. For the longest time I would go on spurts of eating super super healthy, avoiding all sugar and most junk food. I would weigh myself quite frequently, but seemed to always get discouraged because my "number" was never where I wanted it to be at. On the weekends I would have cheat days and often times when I weighed myself on Monday I had gained all the weight I worked so hard to get off the previous week. It was a nasty cycle. It made me so frustrated and even worse, made me focus on that silly number without stopping to look at myself and say, "Hey I like the way I look!" After reading this article, I stopped doing all of this. Sure I still try to eat healthy and work out, but I don't kill myself for having a craving for a donut once in a while. I love the way I look and that's all that matters. Personally, it was a great change for me! I hope it can be for you too.

So go ahead - Love Yourself! Make a change, but love yourself while doing it. Love yourself for making that change and be happy with the progress you've made.

I hope these tips make for a truly happy new year. I know 2017 is going to be a great year for me! Remember it all starts with you and your attitude. You want to be happy? Make that happiness yours and rock it every single day. Happy 2017!