Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever

Someone recommended this on a productivity forum and I ordered it. Knowing that it's supposed to be a workshop and that you're supposed to take a few hours to complete it, I held off on reading it. Finally, I decided to jump in. It starts a little slow with the author giving you her background and how she developed this course. Blah blah blah. That's all well and good but I needed to get to the meat of the book. So I skipped ahead. (Note, it's worth going back and reading the beginning but if you're an anxious, results-oriented person you're want to get going NOW!) First few questions were a review of your past year. DO NOT SKIP THIS. It is vital to understanding yourself better and made me realize my last year was a lot more successful than I had initially thought. The questions get progressively more diffficult but not anything that can't be muddled through. In the end, I crafted a wonderful plan for the year that I could definitely not have come up with on my own. I was shocked at where my focus ended up needing to be to make the changes I was wanting for my life. I could never have come to that conclusion without examining the past, learning from it, savoring my wins both big and small and lasering down to what will make the biggest difference in my life. Once I finally completed it. (It took me a month. I don't have a lot of free time) I liked it so much, I immediately ordered a copy for my BFF. She is currently going through it and keeps texting me about all the insights she's having in as she progresses. I'm thinking to order several copies to give away. If you see it in stock, order it because while I was dithering to get it, it seemed like it was always dangerously low in quantity and I had to wait before ordering for it to come back in stock. I can see myself ordering a new copy every year to start the year fresh. Thank you Ms. Ditzler for helping me to see that my previous way of thinking was never going to get me to where I needed to be and for helping me create a blueprint that I can use to live a happy and productive life, reaching my goals.

One of the best books your will ever read about starting the year and goal setting.

The "plan your best year" genre is crowded, but I was led to this book by a peer group of productive women. Raised on Covey's 7 Habits, I see a lot of similarity here such as identifying values and roles. The author provides a holistic approach to annual planning with examples from others' experience, resulting in a personal, one-page plan that contains guidelines, paradigm, a major focus and top goals. Her tone is personable as she presses the reader to dig deep and find the root of limitation and inspiration. If there's a future release, tidying up typos and optimizing format for e-readers would be lovely.

A tried and true system, and you can make a good start on it in the three hours she suggests. I gave away the copy I used for six years, and had to replace it. Even though I have read it annually, I always find some good advice I'd skipped over or forgotten. One thing I like about this system -- it is a great work around to deal with your Inner Critic. You acknowledge your shortfalls of the year before, but through the author's coaching, they turn into your primary strengths for the year ahead! This book acts as a guide and a cheerleader, goading and coaxing you through the process. You end up with an authentic list of 10 goals for the year ahead -- and an understanding of why they matter, and what your likely pitfalls will be. I'm always surprised to discover how my values have evolved, and what it is that really matters to me, given the retrospective of the year before. I highly recommend using this book to plan your coming year.

Seems readable and gives worksheets. It helped me to critically look at last year and focus on where I need to make more effort. Ask me next year if 2012 was my best year yet.

This is a fabulous book for those that have been into personal development for a while & for those that might be new to goal setting. I really enjoyed the workshop section at the back of the book. At the end of 2009 I bought this book for each of my team members as a thank you gift. I wanted to provide them with a tool to help them live their best year yet in 2010! Earlier this year I also used the format of this book as a guide when I facilitated a strategic planning meeting for the local non-profit that I am the Vice President of. The meeting was a HUGE success and everyone enjoyed the process. I would HIGHLY recommend this book, it is a great gift for yourself & for others! P.S. It can be used at anytime of the year, not just at the beginning!!

Yes, like everyone else I have set goals in the past. In fact, my business partner and fellow crocheter have worked together to set personal and business goals for the past couple of years. Advancement has been made, but this time we were looking for something that would move us to the next level - and we definitely found it. Jinny Ditzler, a corporate trainer, has written an easy to understand, step-by-step system for creating your own best year. By the time you've finished, you'll have answered ten questions that will be the basis for your focus in the coming year. Ms. Ditzler states it will take three hours. If you don't feel you have the time, don't despair. I personally spent much longer than that, but I broke it up over several weeks. I worked on one question at a time using breaks and otherwise underused time (like waiting in lines) to work on my answers. When I was finished, I had a well thought-out road map for this year which includes my personal guidelines, a new paradigm, my major focus and my clearly stated top ten goals. The best thing - I now have my yearly goals broken down into workable monthly and weekly goals/projects. With this plan, I have already seen great results in just a few weeks. I'm feeling less overwhelmed, more organized and definitely confident that I can complete the projects I need to tackle with a lot less stress. In fact, I eagerly look forward to having my best year yet! So could you.

Love this book. Have bought it for several friends. I've used it for 8 years now. Recommend it to everyone.

living by this book and boy has life changed - not settled on perfect yet but I've made huge leaps to take control of my life. I've tried a new career and now I'm going to rethink again but it's got me started and I'm evaluating what's important to me in life.

I really liked this book and found it very useful to get to know what motivates me and write realistic goals for the year ahead. Highly recommend it.

This book is a golden nugget of inspiration . I also love the website and have used best year yet to transform my own life

Excellent book! Highly recommended.