Like many people I start thinking about whether there are any things in my life that I want to change as I approach a new calendar year. I no longer make official resolutions, but I have made lifestyle changes over the past 8 years that have made a big difference in my happiness and success. The way to actually accomplish these things to start planning. Implementing more principles of wellness and positivity into my life has helped me stay at a healthy weight, improved my diet, increased my physical activity and increased my courage.

I have stepped out and accomplished a lot of things that I never would have tried to do in the past. Taking classes. Hiring a life and business coach. Writing a blog. Self publishing books. Starting a speaking business. Pitching Arianna Huffington to write for HuffPost (more than once). Quitting my job of 10 years to step out and discover what else might be out there for me. And trusting that the Universe would guide me to where I am supposed to be.

I did all this stuff by making two simple changes. I scheduled the time on my calendar and made the investment of time, resources and work to make it happen. I learned to be mindful of my dreams and show kindness to myself by making a commitment to myself and keeping it.

Scheduling the time and following through is the first step. As the old saying goes, “80 percent of life is just showing up.” Yes, get yourself out there. You have to take the class, go to the event, launch the blog (and write regularly), or whatever the first benchmark is to your goal in order to get there one day.

Making the investment is a biggie. This stuff isn’t free and most of the time the good stuff isn’t cheap. And there are people out here who aren’t as good as they think they are about helping others get to the next nevel. So you have to watch out for the people who would take your money and teach you very little.

For the next week I’ll be nailing down my life plans for 2017. Writing down the goals I want to acheive from a career and personal pespective. Creating a vision board to help with visualizing where I am heading. Setting a schedule and adding the target dates to my iPhone calendar. Creating a budget for investing in myself and for hitting my savings goal.

A new year starts in less than a week. Do you have plans to start living happier in 2017 – in either your career and/or personal life?