Four New Year's Resolutions to Fast Track Your Career

1. Upgrade your autonomy.

Specialists in the uber-trendy field of positive psychology have identified the #1 barrier to your happiness (the cultivation of which is surely a valuable New Year's goal). The culprit? Lack of autonomy (as anyone with a micromanaging boss can tell you). This current year, find ways to flex your mojo by choosing, to the extent possible, when and how to do your work. Two excellent strategies are lobbying for more flexibility in your list (as with Best Buy's "Results Only Work Environment"), or, at minimum, aiming to reduce the number of soul-sucking meetings you're subjected to (check out these tips for reasons to call off meetings and some positive alternatives you can suggest).

2. Take more lunches.

Networking maven Keith Ferrazzi famously instructed us to "Never Eat Alone" (the title of his excellent 2005 book) as a method to build connections. The advice becomes even more urgent, however, when coupled with research from Stanford University business school professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, who investigates how executives cultivate power. As he notes in a latest Harvard Business Review blog, "If you're in a position to bring together unrelated groups of individuals who benefit from being in contact with each other, that's a form of power." In short, the path to success is becoming a "broker" who fills holes, transmits information and cultivates connections.

3. Lose weight.

You didn't think I'd leave off this perennial favorite, did you? Unfortunately, this advice applies only to the ladies out there, as you'll see in this Wall Street Journal piece. For male execs, corpulence correlates with high pay up to the point of obesity, when their salaries begin getting docked. For women, shedding pounds can be lucrative: if you weigh 25 pounds below average, you'll bring in over $15,500 more than your "normal" peers and nearly $30,000 more than overweight women. (I'm officially noting my socio-political revulsion, but I'm sure the researchers are correct.)

4. Spend more time with your family.

And alas, this one's just for the gents. This interesting Harvard Magazine profile of Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy discusses her study into perceived warmth and competence on the work. Mothers, it turns out, are seen as nicer and less competent in the workplace, Cuddy reports, while "fathers experience the 'fatherhood bonus.' They're viewed as nicer than men without kids, but similarly, if not more, competent. They're seen as heroic: a breadwinner who goes to his kid's soccer game once in a while." So dads: time to hit the stands and begin cheering.