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 Having a birthday in February on the heels of  the start of a new year, gives me an annual sense of renewal.  The month in between I tend to reflect on my hopes and goals for the year to come.  This year around that time my friend Laura Rossi asked me to join up with a team of bloggers to write about the new book YOUR NEXT BIG THING By Dr. Ben Michaelis,  and what each of us might be doing to make and sustain real change in 2013.  I jumped at the opportunity to get the blueprint for success in this book that could give me the tools to help me to achieve what I want this year to bring.

Your Next Big Thing provides a series of quizzes and exercises to guide you through plotting the changes you would like to make in your life, and then gives you tools to see them through.  This book is best suited for anyone who has ever woken up in the morning feeling unsure of where their day—or life—is going. If they’d ever wondered what else might be out there, and thought: What’s next?  The tools in the book can also come in handy  to help set ,and focus on clear goals for even minor life enhancements, like a commitment to good health, or honing in on career decisions.

Dr. Michaelis is a clinical psychologist who is a graduate of Columbia and New York Universities. He has been in private practice in Manhattan since 2004, and  has been published in both academic and popular press as a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post and PsychologyToday.com.

In his new book Dr. Michaelis outlines the three essential elements that form the core of his philosophy, which are PLAY, PURPOSE, and WORK.

He tells us that Imaginative PLAY allows us to dream up possibilities, connecting with your higher PURPOSE gives us meaning, and WORK gets us where we want to go. The “Ten Small Steps” he gives us in YOUR NEXT BIG THING are tangible, and sensible ways to connect to all three of these essential elements, but he emphasizes that commitment is key for making and sustaining real change in your life. His premise is that a true commitment to personal change requires the following three things:

Vision: It’s wonderful if you know exactly what you’d like the changes you wish for to look like, but Your Next Big Thing says it’s not necessary. All that that you need is to be open to imagining yourself and your life as different than they are now. You can explore the particulars along the way.

 Promise: When you commit to change you implicitly make a promise. The promise is not to your husband, your sister, or even your kids. The promise you make is to yourself.

Energy: Energy and work mean purpose. When you truly believe in something, when you are moving with purpose, you are throwing your energy at something you believe in to make a change and to make it the way you want it to be.

In the book he will further guide you towards finding your true purpose, improving your life and reaching your goals. If you would like  to take part in Your Next Big Thing Blog Hop, please link up to my post and the other bloggers here.

http://www.simplymommies.blogspot.com/

http://dodgingacorns.wordpress.com/

http://www.mysocalledsensorylife.com

http://www.Dontlickthetrashcan.com

*I received a free copy of Your Next Big Thing for the purpose of this book review, as always my opinions are honest and my own, and are never swayed by outside influences.