Best Year Yet: resolutions for people who hate resolutions

Like Ilise, I'm not a huge fan of resolutions. I think they engender guilt more than they facilitate growth, and who needs more guilt?!

However, I am a big fan of holding strong intentions. I think a great way to do that is to establish a theme for the upcoming year: "Growth" or "More love" or "More Fun!" are all good examples. When you find yourself a bit adrift, themes serve as powerful beacons in the fog.

For those who like a bit more structure, I would also suggest the system outlined in Ginny Ditzler's book, Your Best Year Yet. Conceived by Ditzler and her husband, refined over many years as more and more people participated in the seminars that were a natural outgrowth of their success at establishing a usable system, Your Best Year Yet walks you through a series of exercises designed to unearth your deepest motivations—your goals and values—and helps you connect them to the actions that will move you closer to your ideal vision of life.

And I do mean Life, with a capital "L". Best Year Yet does the best job I've seen of covering the myriad roles in life—partner, businessperson, friend, designer, what-have-you—and helping you find actionable ways of making dreams come true. I did it halfway last year and wound up switching careers; my good friend did it and quit smoking flat-out, after many failed attempts.

I'm curious: have any other Marketing Mix readers done Best Year Yet? And if so, what kind of results did you get?