Your Mission: COMMIT TO YOUR GOALS
Your Master: Josh Petersen, 35, cofounder of 43Things.com
The 650,000-plus users of 43Things.com, a virtual network of goal setters that launched in 2005, hold one another accountable for the 43 items on their personal online wish lists—from learning to fly to doing a running backflip off a wall. "Putting out that private dream forces you to make progress on it," says Petersen. His advice: Take a nebulous idea and commit to it publicly—via an online site or over beer with your best friend—and brace yourself for the motivational power and moral support you'll get in return.

Your Mission: AIM HIGH
Your Master: Robin Sharma, 42, CEO of Sharma Leadership International Inc. (robinsharma.com)
"A great life is not the result of a few gigantic wins," says Sharma, who's coached high-profile corporate clients like Nike and Microsoft. "It's the result of the small, consistent, 1 percent wins." Here's Sharma's advice for getting started:
Expose Your Excuses: Keep a notebook with you and make a top-ten list of your most common cop-outs ("No first ascent—I have to mow the lawn") so you can start eliminating them.
Clean up your messes: Start with the clutter on your desk and work up to financial, personal, or any other unfinished business hanging over your head. This will free you up for more creative pursuits.

Your Mission: MAKE TIME TO PLAY
Your Master: Deborah Szekely, 84, founder of Baja-based Rancho La Puerta, North America's original fitness resort and spa
How to reprioritize when all you do is work? Schedule some quality goofing-off time with family or friends at least once a week: Shoot hoops, play guitar, ambush someone with a water balloon. "Life is like a good meal—you need to have a little bit of everything," says Szekely, "and you certainly need dessert."

Your Mission: EMBRACE IMPERFECTION
Your Master: Taro Gold, author of Living Wabi Sabi: The True Beauty of Your Life (Andrews McMeel)
When in doubt, adopt the Japanese worldview of wabi sabi, which celebrates the beauty of all things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. (That includes you.) "Wabi sabi is not a license to become complacent," instructs Gold. It's about using your missteps to "look at the map you drew for yourself and reevaluate where you stand." Even Thoreau would approve of this. "It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always," he wrote in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Just some of the time.