WARNING. This is not about New Year resolutions. This is not a plan to lose weight, find love or change your fashion wardrobe, quit smoking or save more money. It’s not to say that New Year’s resolutions are bad…it’s just that people spend time and energy fighting the rats in their lives but don’t take the trash out. What you are about to read is not meant to be a 3 month motivational high that helps you do great things in the first quarter of the year and like an energy drink, leave you with a massive crash in the second quarter. This is more than that. What you about to read are perhaps the most important resolutions you must make to add fulfillment to your life beyond the “get in shape, save more, quit smoking, find love, do better in school etc” type of goals. Inside the timeless resolutions you’ll read below are some powerful keys to getting in shape, financial success, breaking bad habits and yes…finding love but more importantly, will help you live a fulfilled life.  Some of these LIFE resolutions are going to take some thought and creativity, and some of them will take time to turn into your personal culture. Either way, do these things and they might just be your ticket to that “fulfilled” life.

First of all, if you have not read the first part of this series, “New LIFE Resolutions- Pt 1”, just stop reading this one, click HERE and chew that first. Trust me.

Here they are: Some of the most important resolutions to have a fulfilled life.

1)Think like an Immigrant: I live in Miami and I meet a lot of them. You or your parents are probably immigrants and you probably know one or two or have seen them on TV. Talk to an immigrant and he will tell you no opportunity is too small, no job is too hard and the sun is not too hot. He is thirsty for new relationships and new opportunities. He knows that very little adds up to much and he gets the job done because a “sweet mouth” doesn’t get him paid. A job well done does. Glenn Llopis describes this so well in his article in Forbes about this immigrant mentality. He says that “The immigrant trusts that great opportunities are all around him, in both obvious and not-so-obvious places.  Through keen observation he is always searching for these valuable treasures.   In today’s fiercely competitive global market, we must begin to think more like the immigrant, discovering: Opportunities in common, menial tasks, Opportunities in requests for help, Opportunities in small acts of kindness or sacrifice, Opportunities in new relationships, Opportunities in everyday conversations, Opportunities in simple transactions, Opportunities where no one else sees opportunities” . He further explains that “Thinking this way means that we don’t limit those we will serve.  Instead, we serve all for whom we have the opportunity.  We don’t limit the jobs we’re willing to do – we allow each day to show us what must be done.  We don’t specify the kinds of opportunities we’re looking for – we allow opportunities to come from anywhere”. The gist: Get back on the grind, get on the hustle, look for opportunities everywhere and serve everyone you have the opportunity to serve.

2)Think like a celebrity-expand your scope of vision: Hold up! First I tell you to think like an immigrant then I tell you to think like a celebrity? Yes. Thinking like an immigrant focuses on going back to basics…the everyday grind, knowing that the break you need will probably come from the expansion of your daily tasks and relationship base. Thinking like a celebrity is about being strategic. Identifying your strengths that have emerged, and finding ALL the ways you can capitalize on them. It’s about finding out how your strengths overlap. Jennifer Lopez went from dancing to acting, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson crossed over from wrestling to acting, Arnold Schwarzenegger went from body building, to acting, and then to politics, P Diddy went from music into fashion and 50 Cent went from rapping to fashion, to bottled water. Apple went from computers into phones, Tyra Banks went from fashion model to TV host… Think like a celebrity. A lady I once spoke to was an art instructor and had an art class but had an interest in fitness as well, so she merged fitness into her art class. She got into event planning and started throwing art parties. Get it? Always look for the ways that your talents, interests and opportunities overlap and work it!

3)Find the biggest problem in the world around you and find your unique way of helping to solve it. I don’t care where you use this. At work, home, church, school… doesn’t matter. What I do know is that it will catapult you to amazing heights of opportunity and satisfaction. Ask Al gore, Thomas Edison, David in the Bible, Alexander Graham Bell, Joseph in the Bible, Phil Knight, Noah in the Bible, or Barack Obama. They saw a problem…the one they considered big problems…and they solved them and got the most recognition, satisfaction and in many cases, wealth for doing so. Al Gore perhaps has more recognition now for tackling the issue of Global warming than for being the previous Vice president of the United States. In David’s time in the bible, it was Goliath. In Thomas Edison’s time, it was the light bulb. In Noah’s time in the Bible, it was the flood. In Edwin Land’s time, it was photography. In Joseph’s time in the Genesis Bible story, it was the famine in Egypt. As for Moses a few chapters down, it was national slavery. For Phil Knight and Nike, it was the marriage of athlete performance and aesthetics, for Steve Jobs and Apple, it was the marriage of electronics and user friendliness, and in Barack Obama’s time, it was the absence of a voice that could unify a nation and cut through ethnic divide.

4)YOU are the biggest asset that you can control. So control it: Start treating yourself like the asset that you are. Sounds cliché but if you take stock, you’ll be surprised by how terribly we treat our own lives. Financially, spiritually, physically, emotionally and so on. When you get paid, how much do you put aside for YOU? Or do you spend it all making cable companies, car companies, fashion lines, auto finance companies richer? Nothing wrong with these but are you doing that at YOUR expense? How much sleep do you get? What is your diet like? Are you treating yourself like a tool or like an Asset?

5)Love like crazy and show it: It’s that simple. When I tell my younger brother I love him, he finds his deepest voice and mumbles “I love you too man” and teases me by calling me “Mr. Mushy”.  I tease him right back and tell him that he secretly likes it when I remind him I think the world of him. He vehemently claims otherwise…we laugh about it because we both know that the affection between us is truly deep. Ask any man on his dying bed what made his life worth living…what makes him at peace leaving the world…what gives him the most fulfillment when he looks back on his life, and he will probably tell you that its having the love of those that he should have gotten it from, and loving those people he ought to have loved. Love like crazy. Don’t be politically correct about loving your family, friends, significant others, business partners, and anyone that will have some. Give love away like it’s going out of style….give love away because it’s going out of style.

6)Don’t be afraid to ask for help: Asking for help/directions doesn’t make you incompetent. It saves you time and resources. Many people are really struggling with things that they should be asking for help on and end up wasting so much time and resources. This is especially hard for men or very driven women. Stop. Seek help. You’re not incompetent. The most successful people are not people who always have the answers to everything. They may have the best vision, but they simply know where or how to go get answers.

7)Work the advantage of your current environment: Successful people know how to work the advantage in their current situation. While they are not satisfied with it, they know how identify and WORK the advantage they see in their current situation. Too many times, our obsession with , or depression about our unachieved goals incapacitates us from identifying and working our current advantage because all we see is how far from the desired destination we are. So you have a job but you live in your parent’s house rent free. Your fixed expenses should be significantly more per month. What are you doing with that advantage? Are you aggressively working it and paying off debt or saving the money you would have spent on rent? You’re unemployed and I know that’s a terrible place to be but people who are spending all day at work will tell you they wish they had time to work out, make healthy meals, and do this or that. What do you do with your day? Are you working that advantage of the time you have? These advantages are EVERYWHERE. At a traffic light, a day off, the person you sit next to on a flight, a friend of a friend, and so many positions we find ourselves in.

 8) Start Anyway: That business, that project, that organization, book, blog, personal change, education, diet, or whatever. Just start.  We are taught and conditioned to prepare but sometimes our preparation turns into a crutch. We over prepare and want to get the perfect business plan before we start the business, the perfect diet plan before we start eating right, we want the perfect schedule before we start school and we want to have a million prewritten articles before we start a blog.  You know what your “project” is…Just start. Why, (A) while planning and preparation are good, they become our crutch and (B) Perhaps even more importantly, some of the most crucial things you need to learn to be successful will be learnt as you DO not as you plan. The real learning will have to take place as you execute. So get off the sidelines…get out of the office of your mind, get off the drawing board and get out into the field. Just get started.

So there you have it. 8 things you must resolve to do in order to immediately start living a more fulfilled life. They will affect your health, your happiness, your pocket and everything in between. Happy Doing. Don’t be afraid to reach out if you need any help understanding or implementing any of them. Any thoughts?