Today is the 10th day into 2008. How is New Year for you so far? If you have not started on your New Year Resolutions, this is a gentle reminder to get started.

To do that, for this week’s Recommended Reads, I like to share with you some articles I have written on resolutions and starting the New Year. They apply to any goal-setting initiatives as well:

• Starting a New Year with Death - This is my favorite. It’s a reminder to ourselves to do the truly important things in the New Year . How? By using death. Read on…
• 7 Common Reasons People Fail To Achieve New Year Resolutions - If you have your resolutions in place, then note these 7 common pitfalls to increase your chances of success in 2008.
• How to Conquer Self-Doubt in 2008 - Fear and self-doubt are two common emotions that beat us up before we even take the first step towards our goals. It’s alright and normal to feel self-doubt about the future; just learn to overcome them.
• 6 Guilt-Free Steps To Review Your New Year Resolutions - Reviewing resolutions and goals can be a painful affair for some people. It doesn’t have to be so, if you learn to view these reviews in a constructive light.

This blog is about leading a balanced life focusing on career, relationships and money. You can read more about balancing your life here. These articles are written for you. If you find them useful, feel free to subscribe for regular updates as new articles are posted. It's FREE. :)

During this holidays season, I will be taking a break from the Career Lover Series.

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything happening here at A Long Long Road. Over the next few days, I will still be making some posts related to setting goals and New Year Resolutions which is going to be very relevant for readers who’s looking to start 2008 with a great frame of mind.

At the same time, I will also be making some announcements on new happenings here, which you can look forward to in 2008. So stay tuned.

Meanwhile, one of the new initiatives that I like to kickstart is a weekly digest of personal development articles - Recommended Reads. Every week, I will be scouring the Internet for high-quality and relevant articles about personal development and striking a balance. The purpose is to provide readers with additional reading value by leveraging on my blogging network.

I’m starting the first one with contributions from friends who have kindly contributed the best-of-the-best from their blog. So here’s the categorized list (in no particular order):

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(Photo by Wysz)

Christmas is around the corner and I really want to do something special for the friends that I have acquainted on this blogging journey. I really appreciate you reading my articles and especially to those who have continuously supported ‘A Long Long Road’ in your constructive comments (I think you know who you are )

I have been thinking hard about doing something special for this Christmas and I have decided to share a Christmas gift with my blogger friends - I will be giving out free links to fellow bloggers. To get the free link to your blog, please do the following:

1. Send me the URL of any one of your articles on personal development. You can do this in the comment section of this post or via the contact form. I encourage friends to send in your most valued article that you feel will help readers a lot.
2. As part of your submission, please give a short, one paragraph synopsis of the article. Synopsis will have an impact on readers’ click-thru to your article. As such, it’s best to include a synopsis to help readers understand what your article is about.
3. As this is Christmas, the season of giving, I like to get some gifts and links as well. So if you will be so kind as to offer me a link on your blog or one of your articles, I will give more in return by linking to your blog’s homepage as well. This is on top of the link to your article. So that’s two links which will help in your Google PR or Technorati ranking.
4. I like to emphasis that the link to A Long Long Road is NOT mandatory. Do it only if you want to. As long as you make a submission, I will still give out a free link to an article of your choice.
5. My only condition is that your article must be about personal development. I really want this to be a win-win for both blogger friends and also for my readers. As such, the article must be helpful to my readers in personal development as well. And yes, I win too, if you give me a link

Due to the short lead time, I will consolidate submissions from now until end of Christmas Day, 25 Dec (Pacific Time). I will make a resource post comprising the consolidated submissions on Boxing Day, 26 Dec 2007.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone.

Recently I participated in Litemind’s Lists Group Writing Project, with 100 Resources To Improve Your Career, Relationships And Money.

VOTING CRITERIA

One of the project rules requires that I vote for the entries that I like. I have voted for entries based on the following criteria:

• Relevance to personal development.
• Useful content.
• Quality of writing - clarity of thoughts and presentation of ideas.

MY VOTES

The following are my votes, not in any order, for this group writing project:

• 8 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople by Daniel Sitter - there is some great ideas in these 8 tips to being a great salesman. There is a touch on personal development as Daniel advocates not only selling tips and tricks, but also on approaching a sales transaction by putting the benefits of the customer before the salesman’s self-interest.
• 18 Tips to Become a Productive Blogger by Monika Mundell - Monika shares with us some productivity and time management tips related to blogging. Having being a blogger for a few months already, I have also learned that good time management is critical to effective blogging, especially one who is doing it part-time.
• 7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure by Donald Latumahina - I have been a fan of Donald’s blog for some time now. His blog on personal development has always been great inspirations for my own writings, and this article on handling failure is no exception.
• Get out of debt Quick: 7 Tips by Tejvan - Getting out of debt is something close to my heart, and something that I keep advocating on this blog. Here, Tejvan shares some good ideas to get out of debt.
• 10 Ways To Improve Your Personality by Zorka Hereford - Zorka shares with us some practical and relevant tips to improve our personality. If everyone can make a conscious effort to develop better personality, I’m sure this world will be a better place.
• 5 Blogging Ups, 5 Blogging Downs, and 10 Blogging Tips by Albert Foong - Albert’s blog UrbanMonk.net is another great blog which I have been reading for some time now. He is a great writer with great talent. In this article, Albert shares with us his experiences and lessons learned from blogging. Very authentic take and I like his sincere writing.

Well, so here’s my votes, and I suggest my readers to check out these wonderful articles and blogs to further your personal development.

(Photo by raysto)

In his article Tackle Any Issue With a List of 100, Luciano shows us how to tackle any issue with a list of 100 possible solutions.

Today, I like to share a list of 100 great personal development resources to improve your Career, Relationships and Money - in accordance with the aim of A Long Long Road. So, here goes:

CAREER AND WORK

Work In General

1. Should You Report Sexual Harassment in the Workplace - well, the title speaks for itself.
2. Should I Report Ethical Misconduct At Work? - we all may face this judgment call in one point or another in our career. Should we report it?
3. Why do Some People Consistently Inspire Others to Follow Their Lead? - some qualities of great leaders to inspire you.

Career

4. Telework is Good for You - teleworking can really help to strike the work life balance, when done properly.
5. How To Stop Being So Afraid Of Changing Careers - changing career may be a very scary thing, but it’s can also bring a lot of happiness and fulfillment if done correctly. So how do you take this brave step?
6. Exploring Career Choices - what are the career choices to a great life? This articles shows you the considerations to help you think it through.
7. Accessing the Hidden Job Market - other than the normal job agencies and classified ads, there are other hidden channels to seeking a new job. Here are some tips about hidden job market.
8. One Critical Factor That Will Make Or Break Your Career - no matter how great you are at work, you will not be professionally successful without this.
9. What Is Most Likely To Help You Reach The Top? - a similar theme to the previous post.
10. Top 5 Reasons to Quit a Job - common reasons to quit your job, and dealing with them.
11. How to Sell Yourself (and Why Your Career Depends On It) - it’s true, no matter how great you are at your job. Nobody’s going to know about it until you do a little self-marketing. Here’s some tips to do it correctly.
12. 10 Tips for a Successful Meeting With The Boss - when meeting with your boss, you need to be prepare to save his/her time and leave a good impression. Here’s 10 tips to help you along.
13. What To Do When The Recruiter Calls - we all faced this at one point or another in our career, a recruiter. Here’s how to handle the recruiter.

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I have been getting some really good comments on recent posts, and it is heartening to see how these comments actually add new perspectives and value to the original posts. It is my belief that an all rounded perspective which includes diverse opinions and takes on a single discussion provides the best benefits to my readers. This is especially true for the domain of Personal Development, where quotations, success stories or testimonies from a good commenter provides the affirmation and motivations for other readers.

Such interactions not only adds value to my readers, but unknown to many of you, it adds a whole lot to my personal development as well. Some of your comments hit me like a rock, “Why didn’t I think of that?” or “Why didn’t I see it that way?” Through your valuable comments, it adds to my experiences into becoming a more all-rounded and open-minded person; that in return will come back to the community through better future articles.

YOU COMMENT I FOLLOW

As such, to thank you for your time and effort to read my articles and to leave valuable comments for other readers, I have decided to join the ‘You Comment I Follow‘ movement. The basic idea behind this is to reward commenter by adding a link count to commenter’s site. Such counts are important for Google Page Ranks, and Social Bookmarking sites like Technorati. There are already many great articles talking about this movement, its purpose and how it’s done. You can check out the following links for an idea:

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Recently, I was tagged by Priscilla Palmer to contribute to her list of bloggers on personal development. At the same time, I am very honored to be added to the same list.

When I first started on this blog, it was a challenge finding quality blogs on personal development for reference and exchanging of ideas; this list will certainly be very handy and helpful.

I believe that collective thinking and ideas is greater than its parts alone.

History in human development was marked by 3 great revolutions; The Agricultural Revolution, The Industrial Revolution and The Information Revolution that we are currently in. I have always wondered what the next revolution will be, and I am inclined to think that this has something to do with bringing human beings to the next plane of development; something closely related to personal development and increased quality in thinking. After all, many success stories throughout history can be attributed to the quality of thinking of the successful individual.

Can you imagine what the world will be like if the majority of the us have the quality of thinking of people like Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates? What kind of greatness can we human beings achieve collectively if all of us have fully develop and harness 100% of our brains’ potential?

Will that bring about the 4th Revolution? Maybe this list is the start of something great. A watershed in the development of mankind to another higher plane?

Ha! Ok, back to reality: Many of my favorite blogs on personal development are already in Priscilla’s list, including Adam Khoo, Steve Pavlina, Brian Kim, and Zen Habits. I have the following to add to the list:

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