Well, the New Year is almost upon us. I hope you all have a happy hogmanay and a great 2009!

As usual many people will be making their New Year Resolutions, often involving fitness, smoking or relationships.

Not me. I made my last New Year Resolution long ago. What was it? “Don’t make any more New Year Resolutions”. It’s probably the only resolution I’ve ever kept – which is the point of this post.

When you think of making New Year resolutions, what springs to mind? Probably breaking them. Almost everyone does almost every time. We may make them with the best of intentions but they rarely last more than a week or so. And everybody knows that.

That’s the problem. Calling something a New Year’s resolution is in many ways giving yourself an excuse to fail. You can feel righteous and strong yet secretly know you’re not going to go though with it. After all it’s a New Year resolution, nobody really expects you to to stick with it.

The subconscious mind is lazy and cunning. Give it an opportunity like this to duck out of a commitment to hard work and it’ll take it.

Does this mean I won’t be making any changes in my life in 2009? Of course it doesn’t. The new year remains a potent symbol to be tapped into. I have goals and plans for 2009. However they’re part of my long term life goals. They aren’t “resolution”, I’m simply taking the opportunity to review my acievements and objectives.

In other words I’m taking advantage of the New year but trying to do so in a way that makes it part of my normal planning systems rather than distinct from them. That way I expect to achieve my goals rather than setting mysef up to fail.

Whatever method you choose to use to reach your goals, I wish you the best in 2009.

Photo Credit: *Sally M* (Creative Commons)

Possibly Related posts:
•Old Year Resolutions
•New Year, New Who, New You?
•Welcome to 2010