The beauty of simplicity, the beauty of nature.
On one hand, I think new years resolutions are very important, if not critical on the path towards success but on the other hand, they can also be used as an excuse for inaction and rather detrimental to achieving your goals.
New Years Resolutions (Good)
New Years seems to be a special time for many, when actually, it’s no different than any other day. People use this time to meet friends, party and say “next year will be better than the last”. These are all wonderful things! It’s a great time to reflect on your life, past achievements and failure, learning from each. For many people, the event itself marks a turning point in their lives while for others, the energy to make this happen. The nice thing about New Years is that it happens every year and is usually associated with many holidays as well so may get a break from the toils for a job.
New Years Resolutions (Bad)
The bad, if not evil thing about New Years Resolutions is the fact that they do occur only once a year. A habit that is practiced but once a year, such as birthdays, is quickly forgotten and loses its importance soon after the event. I can’t count the number of times I have gone to the gym PACKED in January and by the time February hits followed by March, things return to their (normally) empty self. People make all types of promises, goals, changes in their lives but they are as short lived as the celebrations themselves. To create lasting change, you need weekly if not daily action towards that change, otherwise, it’s futile. The other bad thing about New Years resolutions is that too many are made but not shared with others, a secret of maintaining a habit is to tell everybody you are doing XYZ because it will create a reminder both within and externally each time you see these people. It DOES work.
If you have been especially bad this year keeping your New Years promises of the previous one, I would expect you to get a visit from Biker Clause as a reminder 
New Years Resolutions VS Goal Setting
The main reason why I think goal setting is more important than New Years resolutions is because goals can be set within any time interval, be that a week, month or a decade if need be. New Years resolutions are static and you know how much I hate static things So, don’t make a New Years resolution this year, simply get in the habit of goal setting!
My Goals for 2009
Here are some my goals for 2009:
- publish my first inspirational/motivational book
- publish another WoodMarvels.com volume (current book one is already in pre-press)
- triple the total traffic from all my sites
- create lasting change in at least 100 people using LegendaryLife.com (thousands will join but not everybody will use it as intended)
- create two new sources of revenue for myself (online or otherwise)
- try to win some sort of award somewhere, somehow
- get WoodMarvels.com pre-cut kits into retail stores (online or otherwise)
- enjoy the gift of life even more!
These goals are all possible, quite a few already have some oil in their engines but they still need constant attention in order to create their own steam and produce power. I usually try to keep my long terms goals as simple and straight forward as possible, chaos is a great thing and is always makes the journeys more interesting but it can also modify the road you thought you where to take to turn a goal into reality.
The Bottom Line
Goal setting is New Years Resolutions 2.0
There seems to be a day dedicated to just about every condition known to man from Diabetes Day to Aids Day but hey, why not add another… Left-Handed Day! I can’t think of any group of people who have been more systematically suppressed then left handed people throughout history. From simple everyday tools to even religious influences where Christians believed left handedness was the work of the devil while Muslims believe being right-handed is a pillar of their religion. If you where born left-handed, more likely then not, you where going to live an interesting life.
