You’ve probably seen a spate of articles and blog posts about things to do in the coming year to improve your law practice marketing and management.

No doubt these articles contain some good ideas for bringing in new clients, being more productive, lowering your expenses and increasing your income.

Save those articles and try those ideas. But not right now.

Most of these ideas will deliver only incremental improvement. If you want to make next year your best year, you need an idea, strategy or tactic that will help you double or triple or ten-times your income.

Find that idea, your “one thing,” and focus all of your attention on it.

No, I can’t tell you what it is. It’s different for everyone. I can only tell you it’s there and if you look for it and allow yourself to find it, you will.

Meditate, pray, ask your inner being for guidance. Let your subconscious mind go to work for you and point you in the right direction.

The thing is, there’s a good chance you already know what it is. You considered it once but rejected it, telling yourself it won’t work, it’s too risky, it takes too much time, or it’s just not for you.

Or you allowed someone to talk you out of it.

But it’s still there, lying dormant in your subconscious, and all you need to do to activate it is to give yourself permission to do that.

On the other hand, it might be something you’ve never considered. You never looked. You were too busy cranking out work and never needed to do much else.

Maybe today things are different.

If so, your “one thing” is to devote yourself to finding that one idea and get it up and running.

How will you know you’ve made the right choice? Don’t use logic to answer that. Use your gut.

The right idea feels good when you think about it. Exciting. Scary, too, but fear and excitement are two sides of the same coin, so if you feel either way, you’ve probably found your one thing.

If you feel indifferent, keep looking.

When you find (or remember) an idea that scares or excites you, what then?

Don’t study it. No research. No pondering. Don’t set any goals or new year’s resolutions, either.

Just start.

Allow yourself to get swept up in the excitement and do something. Take the first step. It doesn’t matter what it is, just move.

You’ll learn what you need to know and do as you do it.

And that’s how you’ll make next year your best year.