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Revisit your Ambition. This is a great time to do it. Revise it. Renew it. Ensure that it is inspiring. The litmus test for a good ambition: Check how you feel about yourself when you wake up every morning. That should give you a clue.

Breakaway from the common and popular unless you want to produce mediocre results. Common and popular by definition cannot succeed. You have to stand out from the crowd otherwise you will go wherever the crowd is going.

Care for the concerns of people that you care about. The people who you care about (apart from your family)should include your employer, your customers, partners and your extended network

[Please read: Care as if it’s your own ]

“Demand more from yourself than anybody else ever will.” You can act when someone asks you to act (external trigger) or you can act simply because you want to excel (internal trigger.) In the long run, internal triggers always work better. (Inspiration for this from Michael Jordan)

Engage fully with what you are doing. It is not worth doing anything half-heartedly. Even if it is fun, engage in it fully. You only have 365 days in a year. With weekends and holidays gone, you have close to 250 days. That’s about 6000 hours. With sleep and TV and rest, you get close to half of that available to you. That’s about 3000 hours. If you are not engaged in these 3000 hours, you can be guaranteed that you will be stressed out in whatever hours outside of those 3000 hours.

Fail fast. Fail often. Fail brilliantly. If you fear failure, you will stop taking risks and when you stop taking risks you will do what is common and popular (in other words risk-free). It is difficult to “stand out” of the crowd and distinguish yourself when you  do something that the crowd is doing.

Give first. No more explanation required for this one.

Humility is an “invisible” competitive advantage. With the world changing at breathtaking speed, there is no guarantee that what worked yesterday will work today and what works today will work tomorrow. There is no reason to have more pride than required.

Intensity wins. Big time. Think about the time you were playing a game and were totally engrossed in it. Those were the moments of high-intensity. Winning was important but at that particular moment, you were just playing with high-intensity. That is the way the game of life is played. With high intensity. Increase your intensity by a notch or two in 2010.

Join a tribe. Join a movement. Join a team. Join something that will make help you make a bigger difference in this world. You can only do so much on your own. With the right tribe, the possibilities are endless.Take the first step to make something happen in 2010.

[ Please read: Mini Saga #11 – The Team]

Knowing what NOT to do is equally important as knowing what to do. Before the start of the year, think of a few things that are not worth continuing. Dis-engage from these activities gracefully so that you have more bandwidth to do things that do matter.

Love your work or change what you are working on. How much you love your work shows up in your work. Putting your heart into what you are doing is that “extra” that can make your work extraordinary.

Make meaning. Both for yourself and people who you touch. Everybody is in search for more meaning in their lives. Help them make more meaning and you will help yourself. [ Inspiration for this from Guy Kawasaki]

Nurture relationships for the long-term. There are only two kinds of relationships – one is long-term and the other one is very long term. Very long-term relationships won’t happen in the short-term (that will be an irony) or by accident. You need nurture those relationships.

Be on the lookout for opportunities to contribute. Opportunities are everywhere. They come to those people who are ready and willing to put in the effort to capitalize on them.

Passion on the right priorities with the right amount of patience will create profits. Practice this and you can’t fail.

[Please read: Do your daily work with passion ]

Question your questions. If the questions you are asking until now have not given the results so far, it is time to question those questions. It’s time to ask new and powerful questions.

[Please read: Ask the right questions ]

Results matter. More than anything else. However, good your reasons for not producing results, they still are reasons and they won’t help you get ahead in your life and business.

[ Please read: Know your escape velocity]

Capitalize on your strengths. AND, find good help to handle your weaknesses. You are at your best when you are operating on your strengths. Imagine, in the new year, you are spending 10% more of your time (in comparison to 2009) how much more could you achieve?

Thoughtfulness may not cost you much but people notice it. It shows that you care for them and they are important enough for you to walk that extra mile.

[Please read: Taking thoughtfulness to a whole new level ]

Understand first and then people would want to understand you. If you think someone is not able to understand you, think about the possibility that they might be thinking the same way about you (Inspiration from Stephen R. Covey)

Check your values. They are the foundation for whatever you say or do. The building is only as strong as the foundation and you are only as powerful as your values.

[ Please read: Know your values ]

Be in a mood of Wonder to ensure that you are always learning. You can’t know everything. Not now. Not in a decade and not in a lifetime. Be in a mood of wonder as a student of life.

What is your X-Factor? If you don’t know it, get help to identify it. If you don’t have it, make a plan to develop it. Your X-factor has to be something that will set you apart from the crowd in an area that is “highly relevant” to your target audience.

[ Please read: Discover your Niagara Factor ]

Yearning for more knowledge today will yield good results tomorrow. Jeffrey Pfeffer said, “in order to know your level of incompetence on a topic, you need to be reasonably competent on that topic.” Be hungry and get to know how much more you need to know.

Zap negative thinking. Zap laziness. Zap procrastination. Zap skepticism. Zap anything that will reduce your capacity or the capacity of others around you. It is simply not worth carrying the extra baggage.

If you are interested in a new year resolutions generator (blast from the past), see below:

Life Beyond Code: New Year Resolutions Generator

Have a fantastic year ahead!!