Here is a brief article written by Tim Brown for LinkedIn, accompanied by a video. To check out all of the articles posted by the website’s Influentials, please click here.

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Some think tenacity is the secret to following through on New Year’s resolutions. I think it’s more about asking the right questions and having the confidence to act on them.

I talked with my friend Don Norman recently about the value of asking interesting questions—a central tenant of design thinking. Don is a fascinating guy. A former Apple exec, academic, and author of The Design of Everyday Things, his latest adventure is teaching an online course at Udacity based on key concepts from his book.

The two of us sat down at IDEO to discuss how design thinking not only makes you better at design, but also gives you a set of problem-solving tools to help improve everything in your life, from advancing your career to throwing a great dinner party. Below, you’ll find [embedded within this article] a video of our conversation, which is also part of Don’s “Introduction to the Design of Everyday Things” class.

Whatever you’ve resolved to do this year—exercise more, learn a language, change jobs—I hope you’ll take my advice on how to start designing your life to create real, lasting, and meaningful change in 2014.

What questions are you asking yourself in the New Year?

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To learn more about Tim, please click here.

To read my review of his book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, please click here.