Guides to help you reach a personal peak this year

REVIEWS BY LINDA STANKARD

Remember the old adage: "Good, better, best; never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best"? Well, here are four books that can show you how to move from mediocre to marvelous in 2005.

Best-selling author Debbie Ford (The Dark Side of the Light) offers a guide to reaching out and grasping the life we have always dreamed about in The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It, Plan It, Live It. Stop believing "that the best year of your life exists somewhere off in the future," she admonishes. According to Ford, the time is here and now, and the choice is yours. As the title indicates, the book is divided into three sections. The "Dream It" section emphasizes the importance of dreams and desires, and how "creating a powerful intent" is the first step in creating your best self. The "Plan It" section offers a structured approach to defining and achieving goals which includes strategic exercises and straightforward examples, such as a 15-question checklist for taking charge of your life. Finally, the "Live It" section explains how to put those plans into action with zest, integrity and joy. Ford does not shirk from acknowledging that her plan requires effort, commitment and courage. But if you give 100 percent to the process, she ensures that "having your best year yet will be more than a pipe dream; it will be your destiny."


Moving on up

Similarly, Joel Osteen's book Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, offers an outline for a higher level of existence in the here and now. Osteen is the young, enthusiastic pastor of the diverse, Houston-based Lakewood Church, which has more than 30,000 members, and his inspirational television program is viewed in 100 million households worldwide. Clearly, Osteen's outline for a life of "health, abundance and victory" comes from a Christian perspective. He believes that while God wants to help us, we must do our part to allow God to "promote us, to increase us, to give us more." The seven steps he describes are a means to opening that path. Like Ford, he encourages us to "dream big" and move beyond the mundane. Osteen recognizes that life can throw everything from disappointment to disaster at us, but his outlook remains optimistic. Our human tendency, he writes, "is to want everything easily." But "without opposition or resistance, there is no potential for progress. Without the resistance of air, an eagle can't soar."


The power to choose

From Ken Linder, an attorney and career counselor for some of the country's most prominent journalists, comes Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Decisions When it Counts. Making the right decision is not always an easy task, but Linder's book offers logical steps to find the choice that is right for you. He uses many relevant scenarios to illustrate his points, such as the recent imbroglios of former President Clinton, Martha Stewart and Kobe Bryant. "One really bad decision," he warns, "especially if it involves a display of poor character—can tarnish all of the good things you may have previously accomplished." Linder offers "Strata-Gems" at the end of each chapter to encapsulate his main messages and encourages you to celebrate and savor the constructive decisions you have already made.


Ancient wisdom

Moving from the analytical to the philosophical, The Voice of Knowledge: A Practical Guide to Inner Peace, by Don Miguel Ruiz, is a small, but mind-expanding book based on ancient Toltec wisdom. The Toltec society formed thousands of years ago near what is now Mexico City, in order to "explore and conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones." An expansion of his popular book, The Four Agreements, this new volume offers more Toltec wisdom: "Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions. Always do your best." Ruiz describes his own spiritual journey but offers many "Points to Ponder" that will propel you on your own search for wisdom and inner peace.

So what are you waiting for? With books like these to guide you, put your best foot forward and march confidently into the new year. The best is yet to come!


Linda Stankard continues to be her own "work in progress."

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