We can all afford to remove things from our lives that aren’t doing us any good. We make excuses for keeping these things around – we’re too busy, it takes too much time, we don’t know how, we’re scared, we’re not ready for change, etc.

The intensity of how these non-useful things affect our lives varies. If it’s something as simple as needing to clean up clutter in our house, that sits more toward the “annoyance, but not life threatening” end of the spectrum. But think about the more serious issues that could be doing harm in your life, such as a toxic relationship or unhealthy eating habits. Those issues are more toward the severe end of the spectrum and should not be ignored.

I wanted to talk about the topic of removing things that no longer belong in our lives because an experience I had the other day reminded me of two important factors that contribute to taking that important step forward:

• Moral support from someone you trust.
• Conquering indecisiveness or insecurity in order to make a change.

My example is much less severe than something negative that can cause harm in your life, but it helps me make my point, so hear me out.

My good friend Julie is a personal stylist who is working on developing a side business where she’ll come to your house, help you organize your wardrobe and show you how to create new outfits. I was her test subject recently (tough job for me, right?).

As we started sorting through my clothes, she was putting way more clothes in the “no” pile than I had expected. I had two closets full of clothes (mind you, my house was built in 1925 and all the closets are crazy small) and I had recently sorted through both and removed several articles, so I thought I was in decent shape.

As the “no” pile grew larger and I started questioning Julie’s reasoning, she asked me to tell her how often I wore those articles of clothing and if I even liked how they looked on me anymore. The vast majority I had worn maybe once in the past year or two, and once I tried them on, I was reminded why I hadn’t been wearing them. My style had changed in the past few years, and even though I knew my taste no longer matched several of the clothes hanging in my closet, I had somehow talked myself into keeping them.

Julie’s approach was simple: She told me that if I absolutely didn’t love it anymore, it had to go.

Going back to my two bullet points above, I was finally able to let go of all those clothes because Julie gave me the push/motivation I needed and she wouldn’t let me be indecisive. Either I loved it, or I didn’t. And if I had the slightest doubt as to whether the article of clothing deserved to hang among the elite, then into the “no” pile it went.

Maybe you’re like me and you need to get rid of things in your house that are no longer useful to you. Maybe you have a bad habit you need to kick that’s taking a negative toll on your life. Maybe you have a friendship or relationship that somewhere down the line turned sour, yet you ignore what happened and force yourself to believe that person still makes you happy.

Whatever it is, we can all find at least one thing in our life that needs to be removed. Even if it only makes a small improvement, it’s worth it.

If you know what you need to remove or change and are having trouble getting started, find a friend or family member who can give you the guidance and support you need and commit to overcoming indecisiveness. How can you ever expect to add new, positive, happy and fulfilling things to your life if you continue hanging on to the unnecessary, or worse, damaging? You can’t. I’ve talked before about how change is all about perseverance. Doubt doesn’t work into that equation.

Do you agree? Do you have any other ways to successfully remove unnecessary or negative things from your life?

Photo credit

If you’ve already graduated from college, what is the best thing you did that helped you succeed in your first full time job? I bet if you did an internship during college, that would be your answer (providing you had a positive internship experience). It’s definitely my answer. Classroom teaching can only do so much. Getting real work experience with a company takes things to a whole new level.

I actually had positive and negative experiences with internships in college. I did one with a nonprofit called Girls on the Run that was absolutely awesome, and I got some great experience. I was also part of CMU’s on-campus, student-run PR firm called PR Central, and I got great real world experience providing PR services to local companies.

Unfortunately, the one PR agency internship I did during college was a complete disaster. My boss was awful (both as a person and PR professional), and she barely let me and the other interns do any real PR work. Several other incidents happened that I won’t get into, but basically I learned to always trust my gut and pay attention to red flags because if I had, I would have never accepted the internship offer.

So, what can you do to make sure you get a ton of value and find success with your next internship? We’ll be sharing plenty of advice related to that topic during the next Help a PR Pro Out (HAPPO) Twitter chat on Thursday, April 26 from 2-3 p.m. ET. Summer is coming up quickly, so this topic is very relevant for anyone looking to land a summer internship. If you’re not in the communications industry, you’ll still learn some important tips about scoring a great internship in any industry.

Here are some of the topics we’ll discuss during the chat:

• How people who have completed internships secured them.
• What students can do in the first few days of their summer internships to make a great impression on their team/supervisor.
• Ideal skills/qualifications students can pull from internships to put on their resumes.

To participate, all you have to do is log on to Twitter at 2 p.m. ET on the 26th and follow the #HAPPO hashtag. Also follow @helpaprproout and Pittsburgh HAPPO champ Deanna Ferrari (the moderator for this chat) to see the chat questions. Then, make sure you ask questions, interact with participants and share your thoughts and advice. I really like to use Tweetchat to do Twitter chats, so check it out beforehand to see if it will work for you.

Questions? Leave them here in the comments or ping me on Twitter – @nikki_little.

** If you live in Michigan and are in the communications industry, I’d love for you to subscribe to the bi-weekly HAPPO Michigan Report. Every other Wednesday (next one goes out May 2), I send out this e-newsletter that includes job openings, events, a featured job seeker and relevant/important posts or articles. Please and thank you!

Photo credit

It’s called “bittersweet change” for a reason. If you dissect the first word in the phrase, you’ll find there’s a combination of negative and positive, with the negative leading and positive following. We recognize change as bittersweet when we know something good or new will ultimately follow something difficult and challenging. I’ve learned that change is all about perseverance, and that is particularly true with this type of change.

I’ve gone through two experiences recently that 100% fall into the category of bittersweet change – the death of my grandmother and stepping out of a role for an organization I’ve dedicated myself (and much of my free time) to for the past three years. Let me explain how both of these changes are bittersweet and how through my experience with them, I better understand how to handle similar changes in the future (and hopefully you will, too).

My grandma was 96 years old and lived a life relatively free of health problems. No major surgeries, no cancer and no other serious illnesses. She never looked a day older than 75, and was darn proud of it. Over the past year, her health started to decline. I blame it on a number of factors, but ultimately old age took over. Selfishly, I wasn’t ready for her to go. She was the closest family member to me outside of my immediate family. She started babysitting me when I was a newborn. She lived behind the house I grew up in until I was a sophomore in high school (then she moved 30 minutes away). I used to stay the night there on weekends when I was younger just because. We used to walk to Burger King together in the summer, play cards and watch The Price is Right and her favorite soap operas.

The memories are countless, which is why it was so hard to recognize that the end had finally come. But, I knew it was her time, and I knew she would be better off. I felt selfish hoping and praying she would live longer because I knew she was ready to go. Believing she would end up in a happier place is what continues helping me heal through this bittersweet change in my life. Clinging to the “sweet” part of this change has been my saving grace.

The second bittersweet change came when I made the decision to step away from my Tweetea leadership and moderator role. This came as a result of the promise I made at the end of last year to start trimming back my commitments in order to live a more balanced and healthy life. This will completely depend on your future plans, but if you’re someone who commits to several roles and organizations outside of your work, there’s going to come a time when you need to cut back. You may be like me and absolutely hate the idea of letting go of things that added such value to your life, but ultimately, some things have to go in order to find the right balance and better align yourself with current/future commitments.

I will forever be grateful for the way Tweetea and everyone involved in that community enriched my life. I learned new things, made new friends and got to be part of really cool experiences, like when Chrysler communications pros came to Tweetea to open up about social media and discuss the “F-bomb tweet” situation. I will never stop supporting the organization as long as it exists, and I’ll attend future meetups when it makes sense for me to do so. Similar to my first example, knowing that letting go of this responsibility would ultimately lead to other benefits in my life (not feeling like I’m stretched too thin, extra time to dedicate to work as my load and team grow, more time to spend with MAL, etc.), is what convinced me that I was making the right decision.

Have you picked up on the moral of the story yet? I’m sure you can think of a few bittersweet changes that have impacted your life at some point. For all the ones that are yet to come, focus on the sweet to get through the bitter. There are varying degrees of bitter in each change, but remember the painful and challenging part will eventually dissipate, and something good will be waiting on the other side.

Have any additional advice on how to handle bittersweet change?

Photo credit

Are you the type of person who asks for help the minute you need it? Or, do you always do everything possible to figure things out on your own before you dare ask for someone to help you? Maybe you’re like me and you’re somewhere in between. I’m not too stubborn to ask for help when I know I need it, but I also like to do some digging before I reach out to someone else. I won’t lie – my impatience gets the best of me sometimes and I ask before I’ve put in enough effort on my own, but I’m working on not doing that!

There really is no perfect answer that works for everyone when it comes to knowing when to seek help, or what the best method is for approaching someone when you need help. However, as I’ve been paying closer attention to how people approach me for help, I think there are three important things everyone should do before any type of help is requested.

Do your own research – This should be a given, but unfortunately people think it’s OK to put the onus on someone else rather than investing time to find the information or answer. Maybe you won’t find the entire answer, but if you do some digging and come to the person you’re asking for help with at least some information, it shows initiative. And frankly, if you don’t know the person very well and you’re asking for help without doing some searching on your own, you immediately come off as lazy.

Taking time to figure out the answer on your own is really important for professional growth, as well. What is your boss going to think if you’re the person who always asks questions without at least making an attempt to answer them yourself first? Managers should never condemn smart questions, but jumping to questions before trying to problem solve on your own will not get you far in your career, or in life.

Think of specific questions – Rather than asking broad and very general questions (e.g. “How can I get a really great job like yours?”), come to the person you’re reaching out to with very specific questions. Recently, I’ve had a few PR students ask me very broad questions similar to my example. I could spend an hour talking about this, and I could write a novel of an email trying to explain this. Depending on the situation and timing, make it as easy as possible for the person you’re requesting help from to provide you with valuable answers. It’s going to take me longer to put my thoughts together around a broad question, but I can think of an answer more quickly the more specific you get. 

Going back to the first example, this shows you put some time and effort into thinking about what questions will be most helpful to you. And, it shows you don’t expect the world and more from the person you’re approaching. “Tell me what I need to do to succeed in my career” is not the same as “What are three things you did in your first year on the job that helped you succeed?” Particularly if you don’t know the person well, don’t go into this with the intention of squeezing out every morsel of advice the person has to offer. Be respectful of his/her time, whether you’re meeting in person or emailing questions.

Also, specific questions will garner specific answers. If you make the question too broad, you risk not getting the answer you were hoping for.

Make sure you’re giving enough lead time – Do you need answers or information back by a specific date/time? If so, you better give the person you’re asking more than enough time to get back to you. A few months ago, a college student sent me a DM on Twitter saying he needed a PR professional to answer a few questions for class and asked if I would be willing to help him out. I said I would be happy to and asked him to email me the questions and when he needs the answers. When I received the email, he told me he needed the answers by the next morning. It was the middle of the day when he asked me. As diplomatically as possible, I told him he can’t expect such a quick turnaround in the future and needs to give more lead time than half a day. The questions took me awhile to answer, and there were about five or six of them.

It definitely depends on the context of the situation and how well you know the person, but don’t expect someone to drop everything to help you out simply because you need something. People will often go out of their way to help, even if they don’t know you. But before you reach out for help, think about your deadline, and be sure to reach out well in advance so you don’t put someone in an uncomfortable or pressured situation.

And by all means, say thank you when someone helps you out! I had a similar situation to the one above with the college student from another student who needed questions answered for a class. I spent time answering the questions, sent them to the student and never received a “thank you” in response. That’s a real easy way to burn bridges. We’re all busy, but never too busy to give a simply “thank you.” Seriously – don’t forget that.

Also, don’t forget that helping others in essential. The power of spending five minutes to help someone may not be evident at first, but if you do what you can when you can to help others, you’ll get more in return. Guaranteed.

Have you had similar situations where people do the wrong thing when reaching out for help? Any suggestions on what else to do before requesting help?

Photo credit

This is from the Essential Elements “oldie, yet still a goodie” archives, originally published on October 3, 2010.

The same thing frequently happens to me on Sunday nights. As I’m finishing up tasks that needed to get done over the weekend and planning for the upcoming week, the anxiety starts to set it. Anxiety about what I didn’t get accomplished during the weekend. Anxiety about the week to come and everything on my to-do list. Anxiety about having anxiety.

I bet many of you reading this are nodding along in agreement. Even when we’re fortunate enough to be doing everything that we love (which should always be the case, but sadly isn’t for everyone), it’s nearly impossible to avoid feeling the pressure that comes along with commitment and responsibility.

Here’s a quote from Seth Godin I’ve saved that I want to share with you as you’re kicking off another week:

“Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste.”

Kind of puts anxiety into perspective, doesn’t it? I intentionally keep this on my to-do list in Evernote so that I’m reminded to take a step back and chill the heck out every time I look at that list and start feeling anxious.

Consider doing something similar. Write this quote on a Post-it note and put it on your desk or computer. Or, if this quote doesn’t do much for you, find a similar one and refer to it when you’re feeling overwhelmed. When stress and anxiety levels soar, subtle reminders that help us keep our cool can make a world of difference.

Do you do anything particular when you’re feeling anxious or stressed? Are there any quotes/words of advice similar to Seth’s that you carry with you?

Photo credit

Agree or disagree with this statement: Learning never stops.

Hopefully you agree, because even if you’ve mastered something, you can always learn more, or work on learning something related to what it is that you’ve mastered.

I love soaking up as much information as I possibly can, especially related to the work I do, so I’m constantly reading articles, blog posts and books related to PR/marketing and social media. As much as I’ve learned thanks to all the reading I do, I started to realize that I may be doing a serious disservice to myself by only reading material related to my career. Reading about things of interest to you that are completely unrelated to what you do can oftentimes spawn creativity, as well as ideas related to your work.

Just as I made the decision to add more reading into my life that did not relate to my career, I read this post from Gini Dietrich about how reading fiction helps your career. It makes so much sense, doesn’t it?

I did some research on the best books for 2011, and thanks to a list NPR compiled, I settled on The Illumination. I just finished reading it (highly recommend it!), and while I can’t give you any evidence just yet as to show how it strengthened my career, I can tell you it was a welcome respite from my typical daily reading. It was also a good way to slow my brain down at night and tire myself out with some reading material that didn’t make my head spin with ideas for work. As much as I love when that happens, it not exactly a good idea to read that type of content before bed.

For those of you who are like me and haven’t branched out to read interesting and inspirational content that doesn’t directly relate to what you do every day, especially if your work is related to social media, I wanted to give you some suggestions from sites that have made their way into my Google Reader. I also crowdsourced some additional suggestions from my Facebook and Google+ contacts.

My suggestions:

• Harvard Business Review – Through this site and other platforms, Harvard Business Publishing aims to influence real-world change by maximizing the reach and impact of its essential offering – ideas. The site features a hodge-podge of content, but it’s all very well written and thought provoking. You will find some posts related to social media, but not that often.

• PsyBlog – Psychology studies relevant to everyday life. The content isn’t so psych-specific that it’s going to go way over your head.

• the3six5 – This site features a different story every day by a different author giving a short narrative on his/her perspective of the happenings that day. I absolutely love this site. I’m actually going to be an author on May 24 this year. It’s an item I added to my bucket list after I wrote my why I’m trading New Year’s Resolutions for a bucket list post, so I was super stoked when I was accepted as a 2012 author.

• Zen Habits – Who doesn’t need more zen in their life? Seriously. The content on this site is all about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of life. If I ever meet Leo Babauta in person, I will give him a huge hug to thank him for helping talk me off the ledge with several of his posts.

• Thought Catalog – This is my new favorite site. You’ll find it very easy to identify with a lot of the stories on this site. Many of the authors write with a very intentionally blunt and sarcastic tone, but when you read their stories, you feel like you’re having a conversation with a good friend.

Network suggestions:

• Prolific Living, suggestion from Timothy Gay – This site includes content that helps you live on your own terms – not anyone else’s.

• The Online Mom, suggestion from Christina Strickland – This site has a lot of tech/online related content, but it could serve as a really good resource for a parent to keep up with all the technology their kids use. This is different than your “how to do X with social media” site. Don’t let the name fool you. Dads will benefit from this site’s content, too.

• Joe Blogs, suggested by Justin Goldsborough – For all you sports fans, this is a blog for you. The author, Joe Posnanski, is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated.

• Peaceful Daily, suggested by Nicole Barrett – I love the site’s mantra: Think Good. Eat Whole. Walk Far. The site features daily living tips for people around the world.

• Design Milk, suggested by Michelle Martinez – Design Milk is an online magazine dedicated to modern design. You can get some really fun and creative design ideas from this site.

• The Bloggess, suggested by Rachel Esterline – You’ll get your daily humor fix thanks to this blog.

• Positively Positive, suggested by Lisa Kupelian – This site features content related to optimism and inspiration and aims to bring uplifting voices and messages to its community every day.

• Summer Tomato, suggested by Mallory Jade – The site offers healthy food tips and advice, especially for food lovers in urban areas.

• The Daily What, suggested by Bobby Mercader – The Daily What features random humor that will give you a good laugh.

• Mark Reads, suggested by Leigh Hansmann – This site offers funny, yet insightful, chapter-by-chapter reviews/recaps of books. You could find your next book on this site.

Thanks to everyone who shared suggestions!

Have a favorite site unrelated to social media that isn’t on this list? Share in the comments.

Photo credit

Thanks to a recommendation from my metro Detroit pal Bryan Willmert, I had the opportunity to test drive a 2012 Acura MDX from Suburban Acura as part of the Social Test Drive series. Bryan had previously participated in the test drive, and he was then able to recommend others who he thought would be interested.

I picked up the car on a Thursday evening and returned it the following Monday during lunch. I will not even try to admit that I’m a car enthusiast (though I developed a love for sports cars thanks to my dad owning a 1979 and 2002 Firebird Trans Am), but I was in love with this car at the end of my test drive experience. Check out the video for more on the cool features.

For companies that want to get social media enthusiasts using and talking about their cool products and services, here are some lessons you can learn from how Zac Holmes, online marketing manager at Suburban Ford of Waterford, is conducting this program to make it a success:

• Don’t create stringent rules. It drives me crazy when I hear from reporters and bloggers that PR people reaching out to them give them rules related to how they should share reviews about products and services. No, that’s not how it works. Every person’s community and social activity is different. Let them do what works for them. Zac was very clear that the point of this program was to have people share their experiences with the vehicles through social media, but he didn’t make me commit to a certain number of tweets, photos, Facebook posts, videos, etc. That was an immediate appeal.

• Zac interacted with me and the people responding to my content throughout the process. It showed he was paying close attention to the reactions I was receiving, and he continued making the brand part of the conversation without overdoing it, or worse, being pushy and “sales-ish.”

• Zac created his own content through the Suburban online channels. He created a short video to encourage people to follow along with my #socialtestdrive tweets throughout the weekend and shared it on different networks. While it’s good to rely on the people you’re reaching out to in these situations to create interesting content, as the marketing person behind the effort, you have to be doing the same to reach the communities you’ve built online.

• He’s letting the drivers recommend who participates next as a “pass on the good fortune” sort of deal. I like this because it shows the brand is open to letting the public shape the path of this program. However, you have to also be careful if you let go of too much control. Where I could see this backfiring is if people recommend friends who want the experience but really aren’t that active in the online space. Zac and I didn’t discuss this, but he should have some participant criteria as a fall back plan just in case the next recommended participants don’t exactly fit the bill.

I asked Zac a few specific questions about the program that may help if you plan to do something similar in the future:

• What’s the story behind the program? There was a customer from our Subaru store who had some mechanical issues with his leased Subaru. Subaru was giving him a hard time, so he took to Twitter (and his 10K followers) about his issues with Subaru, and in effect, Suburban. Our Internet manager for the entire company saw his situation and started fighting for him. Suburban took on Subaru and got his engine replaced by Subaru. The manager realized that if we can harness that same kind of resonance for our brands in a real and positive way, it would be extremely effective. So far [with this program] it has. 

• How are you measuring success with this program? Honestly, we don’t really know yet. We are watching how #SocialTestDrive is trending and what kind of feedback we are seeing from the bloggers and the people following them. It’s an evolving process.

• What successes have you had so far? We have seen a few sales, but we have only been running this program for less than two months.

• What recommendations would you give to another company that wants to reach out to bloggers and social media enthusiasts to test out a product? Find someone (or many someones) with reach into different groups and influence and let people be honest. Blocking, deleting and arguing with people’s opinions is fake and will get you nowhere. Instead, these negative remarks give an opportunity for dialogue, something oddly missing from a business to customer relationship. Hand it off and see what people think! (Love this answer – take note, marketers!)

I will not get on my measurement soapbox, and I know many companies starting out for the first time with a program like this often don’t put solid metrics into place. But one piece of advice I’ll give to Zac and anyone else doing anything in the social space is to clearly define how you will measure and prove results. Please. Just do it. You’ll thank me later.

Do you think this is a smart move for the Suburban team? What other advice do you have to make outreach programs to bloggers and social media enthusiasts successful?

I’ve been part of the Help a PR Pro Out (HAPPO) team for awhile now, and I get a ton of value from my involvement in the organization. I use social media every day for personal and professional reasons, so being part of an organization that helps connect job seekers and employers through social media has been very rewarding.

Arik Hanson, Minnesota PR pro and HAPPO co-founder, started a new initiative last year called The HAPPO Report, a weekly e-newsletter that’s sent to more than 250 PR pros/communicators across the Twin Cities. It includes relevant jobs, upcoming events, posts from the last week and a featured job seeker each week.

Thanks to Arik’s support, The HAPPO Michigan Report will launch very soon and will contain the same content (but specific to Michigan, of course). If all goes as planned, the first e-newsletter will go out before the end of February. It will be biweekly and will hit your inbox on Wednesdays.

Sound like something that’s worthy of adding yet another e-newsletter to your inbox (c’mon, you know you want to!)? You can subscribe now. If you have an available communications position, are hosting an event and want to share it in The HAPPO Report once it launches or would like to be a featured job seeker, feel free to contact me.

If you want to know what else the HAPPO team has in the works for 2012, Arik shares the future of HAPPO and what you can do to help in this recent post.

Confidence – Belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance

Arrogance – Offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.

See the difference? I’ll assume you do. Now make sure you don’t show arrogance when you’re meaning to show confidence. On to the post…

I’ve been noticing something in my life a lot more lately that has helped contribute to success. Once I started paying closer attention to this trend and noticing how it influences outcomes, I knew I needed to share it so others could hopefully replicate the process.

I’ve noticed that when combining strategy with confidence, the chances of success increase dramatically. Will the result always be positive each and every time you combine strategy with confidence? More than likely not. But I’ve experienced successful results enough times to make me believe the chances of getting a win rather than a fail with this combo is highly likely.

Making strategic decisions is important – both in your personal and professional life. Mapping out a clear plan of action that includes very specific steps is really important when it comes to accomplishing whatever it is you’ve set your sights on. But, I don’t think strategy is enough to ensure success. If you don’t evoke confidence and truly believe that whatever course you’ve mapped out is the best possible option, then all that planning and prepping goes to waste.

Yes, people pull off things all the time that they didn’t believe could really happen. But they’re sweating bullets throughout the entire process and expecting the worst. Is that really what you want to do? Even if you’re trying something new or prescribing something that hasn’t been done before, if you’ve done the appropriate research and prep work and you truly believe the outcome will be great, then stay confident through the entire process until the very end. And if it doesn’t work out, then you’ve learned a valuable lesson for the next time. Don’t let the fear of the unknown crush your confidence.

Let me give you an example of how the strategy/confidence combo has worked for me lately. I play tennis once a week. I played competitively in high school, took a few years off during college and the beginning of my transition into the “real world,” then started back up a little more than two years ago. So, while I still play pretty well, my skills aren’t as refined as they would be if I were taking lessons or playing a few times a week.

I know this, and there have been several times that I’ve known the right shot to make, but I won’t do it because I’m timid. I think that I haven’t practiced enough to pull off that type of shot, or I don’t hit the ball as hard as I could because a softer shot will more likely go over the net, so my lack of confidence gets the best of me.

But as I’ve been focusing lately on making sure my confidence shows through in all aspects of my life, I’ve noticed a change in my tennis game the past few weeks. I’m playing really well, I’m hitting the ball harder and I’m taking riskier shots because I’m confident I can make them. Yes, I still lose games and miss shots. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I started winning more consistently when I started playing with more confidence.

Test out my theory. Start being more conscientious of being confident during work and play. See if that confidence helps you achieve better results.

Do you agree that strategy and confidence is a smart combo? Do you have examples of how showing confidence has helped you achieve success?

Photo credit

** I just switched my domain over to nikkilittle.com, so if the logo is still missing when you read this, please overlook it! It will be back soon. And I lost all social shares on my posts. Boo-hoo! But big thanks to the Don, Hubert Sawyers, for making the switch.

It’s almost the end of the year, which means many people are thinking about how they can improve their lives in the coming year. The gym is always jam packed around this time of year, and people are talking and posting online about their goals and resolutions.

Last year, I wrote about what to keep in mind when setting New Year’s Resolutions, and I actually think setting resolutions and/or goals is better than doing nothing to improve whatever it is you need to work on in your life in the coming year. But this year, I’ve decided to change things up.

Rather than setting resolutions or goals, I created a bucket list. Starting now and moving forward every new year, I plan to work on achieving what is on that bucket list. I may add or delete items before the turn of each new year as my life changes, but that’s OK.I have to thank PR pros Heather Whaling and Arik Hanson for the bucket list inspiration. Heather posted on Facebook about achieving something on her PR bucket list. That led Arik to write a post about what’s on his PR bucket list, which in turn led to other PR pros like Justin Goldsborough and Matt LaCasse creating their bucket lists. I wanted to broaden mine out to also include personal items on my list and use this as an opportunity to do something new at the end of the year that isn’t tied to a resolution.

So, here’s what I have so far on my bucket list:

1. Visit my Chilean family again – I studied abroad in Valdivia, Chile my last semester in college in the fall of 2006, and it was the most amazing experience. I was so fortunate to be placed with such an amazing family, and I miss them dearly. I promised them I would come back some day. Sadly, the travel time is long and flights are expensive, so it’s not a trip I can take every year. But I am determined to go back…hopefully more than once.

2. Pay it forward, but in a really big way – You always read about or see heartwarming stories in the news (especially during the holidays) about a really awesome act of kindness, like a random person replacing a family’s stolen Christmas gifts. I want to be that person one day. I want to learn about someone in need and do something really big to help them out. I’m a sucker for helping nonprofits now, but at least once in my life, I want to do something that completely changes a person or family’s life in a really positive way.

3. Travel to Hawaii and Italy – Do I really need to elaborate on this one?! Italy is also high on the list because I’m Italian and my great-grandparents are from there.

4. Attend Wimbledon – Tennis is my favorite sport, and ever since I started playing in high school, I told myself I would make it to Wimbledon one day. I’ll seriously be in tennis nerd heaven when I do.

5. Establish a yearly scholarship in my name for a student in the integrative public relations program at Central Michigan University – I have to thank PR pro Allan Schoenberg for this inspiration. He gives a scholarship to a student in the IPR program at CMU every year, and I definitely plan to do this one day.

6. Be part of a fashion designer’s photo shoot and/or be featured in a fashion publication, website or blog – If you know me even the tiniest bit, you know I’m into fashion. I think it would be so fricken cool to be part of a fashion designer’s photo shoot, or to be featured in a fashion publication (think Hour Detroit or StyleLine in metro Detroit). Who says you have to model professionally to do something fun like this?

7. Provide PR/communications services to a major retailer, fashion designer or anything else fashion related – Back to that whole love of fashion, it would be crazy fun to do fashion PR. At least for one company or designer.

8. Have children (ideally two) – I could write a whole post on this based on how concerned I am with how I’m going to balance a family and a career that includes more than just my day-to-day job. I know, I know – people do it all the time. It can be done. And I’ll do it someday. Hopefully before I’m 40!

9. Receive some type of PR/communications award or honor – As of right now, I don’t have a particular award that I’d like to aim for. But I think it would be such an honor to receive at least one award related to my career.

10. Continue contributing articles and blog posts to sites/blogs I’m not affiliated with in any way, and keep aiming higher – I’ve written a fair share of guest blog posts, and I freelance for Metromix Detroit. I want to continue contributing content to other sites and get published on a site like Harvard Business Review or Forbes.

I have a few bucket list “maybes”, such as being an adjunct professor, writing or co-authoring a book and owning or co-owning a company. These three things sound appealing when I really start to think about them, but I can’t say without hesitation that I want to accomplish them in my life. So for now, they’ll sit in the “maybe” file.

This is more along the goal spectrum, but I am making one commitment to myself starting in 2012:

I will not commit to anything new unless I receive as much value from it as I’m providing.

At first glance, that may seem extremely selfish and monetary driven. It’s definitely the former, but not the latter. And it’s selfish because I’ve learned I need to take care of myself as much as I take care of others. I have been hammering this concept home to a good friend the past few months, and I know I need to take my own advice. I have to know that what I’m investing my time/talent/resources in is helping me grow and achieve my personal/professional goals or items on my bucket list, or else I simply can’t commit to it. If you’re in a similar position or previously have been, you’ll understand where I’m coming from, and you’ll know this isn’t a purely selfish “it’s gotta be all about me” decision. It’s more a way to keep my sanity and make sure I have enough time to dedicate to the important things in life.

If you have a bucket list, share in the comments what’s on your list. Or, if you decide to write your own post, link to it in the comments so I can check out what’s on your list.

I wish you all a very happy, healthy and safe New Year! Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing my posts. It’s all much appreciated.

Photo credit