Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!

Man, that just sounds great, doesn't it? A new year is upon us, full of promise and promises to improve our lives. Sure, many people don't follow through on their promises, but doesn't it feel good knowing you have this yearly opportunity to get a life mulligan? No matter how badly we screwed up over the year, New Year's gives us a clean slate.

But what's stopping you from making life changes throughout the year? Just because it's not New Year's doesn't mean you're not allowed to do it. If we took this attitude throughout the year, we might not have make so many resolutions at the end of the year. It doesn't matter when you decide to change your life. What matters is that you follow through and act on your decision.

And it matters that you believe you can change. Most New Year's resolutions get broken within the first few weeks of the year. Why? I think it's because we don't make resolutions because we believe we have to change. We do it because everyone else is making resolutions. And when you consider some of the people out there, like me, you should really strive to do something for yourself.

Most importantly, whatever resolution you make, make it challenging, but attainable with clearly defined benchmarks. Let's say you want to lose 100 pounds. If you say you want to lose it by, say, next Tuesday, you're setting yourself up for failure. If you want to do it by this time next year, you're being more realistic, but you're still not quite there. If you keep the mindset that you're going to lose 100 pounds by losing 25 pounds a quarter, you've got it. You have the big goal and you've set checkpoints for yourself to see your progress throughout the year.

I hope you and your loved ones have a prosperous and joyous 2007.