A New Year, A New You

The beginning of January. The beginning of a new year. The beginning of a new chapter of the book we call life. The beginning of an opportunity to make the most out of yourself for the next 12 months. This is a period to redeem yourself of your past and prior sins. This is a chance to set forth goals in which you want to accomplish in the future. Ultimately, this is an opening in the gap to transform yourself into the person you've always strived to be.

Anything that is worthwhile in life only becomes a reality when they are set as goals. Goals need to be set in order for a plan of action to be carried out and for motivation to be there. Therefore, write down your goals. When you write them down, they are that much easier to follow through and that more likely to actually occur. Visualizing your goals by actually writing them down on a piece of paper makes it much more likely for those things you once called dreams to become realities. Do whatever you have to do. Post it on your fridge, on your bathroom mirror, or anywhere else that you look at often. Kendall Cross, an Olympic wrestler who always strived to win gold, used to put a poster on his ceiling above his bed with the words written on them: "Get up and train while your opponent sleeps!". Additionally, he put on his fridge a motivational saying that prevented him from indulging into junk food. And you can guessed what happened after he solidified his goals...He won the Gold medal. Do whatever you have to do to make your goals and dreams become a reality. Solidify them as goals on paper rather than goals that will fade away along with your memories.

Within your goals, always strive for excellence. Excellence starts from the second your eyes awake in the morning to the moment they shut. It is instilled within you to be the best person you can possibly be and to approach every activity with a certain determination to give it your absolute all...no holding back. Excellence is working at each and every task like it's your last...working your hardest to get the job done, regardless if you enjoy it or not. If you want to get in shape, put forth your absolute best effort to achieving a great body and don't hold back anything. If you have a goal in life, thoroughly follow through. It might take an act of failure or a multitude of them to succeed in the end, so look past the immediate failures, because in the end there could be tremendous success. Michael Jordan put it best: “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

And remember, you are the only one who can get the job done. No one else can do it for you. Therefore, this motivational drive to succeed has to come from within. Self-motivation is the only motivation that gets you somewhere in life. Externalities or incentives do not get the job done...it's got to come from deep within you...a burning desire to light a spark and consequently turn it into a fire.

Some goals that should be on the top of your list this year include:

Spend More Time With Your Family

Make it your priority to spend time with your loved ones. Family are all you really have who actually care about you when things get rough. During smooth times, friends are there for you, but when the road gets a little rocky, friends may often drop you at the first sign of trouble. Do whatever you can to make the people who care for you a priority. Go out to dinner with them whenever you get a chance. Every once in a while, stay in to watch the football game with your father opposed to going out to watch it with friends. Take your mother out shopping and buy her a new dress instead of purchasing a round of drinks at the bar. I am not condoning for you to drop your friends in an effort to spend time with your family...friends are important to, but your parents and family have been there for you your entire life. It is now time to repay them for their good deeds.

Get Healthy and Fit

It is time to treat your body like the palace it deserves to be treated as. You only have one lifetime, so make it count. Being physically fit is essential. As Darwin stated, this world is about survival of the fittest. Simply put: if you aren't fit, you won't survive. Too many times do I see elderly people fall down and break a hip because of a lack of care on their part to keep their muscles and bones strong. Too many times do I see people die of a heart attack at a young age because they neglected their health by a lack of exercise, heavy alcohol and tobacco use, and poor diet. Take action now, and the future will be that much better. Remember, your body is the only place you have to live.

Get out of Debt and Don't Get Into It in the First Place

First and foremost, you should never lead a life of debt. Put away a little of your salary each month. Put in the maximum amount of money into your pension that your company allows a matching of. Do realize that money has a time value in which the sooner you put the money in, the more money it will be down the road. You may say to yourself you need that extra 5% of money to get by, but trust me, once it's gone, you won't be so lost without it. You will be able to get by just fine.

If you are in debt now, you've got to get out of it. Forego the purchase of an additional coat that you "need" now and pay off your MasterCard bill that is eating away at your weekly salary. Stop relying on your credit cards to make purchases. If you can't pay it with cash, you probably won't be able to pay it off when the bill comes in. If you do charge, pay the bill off as soon as you get it in. Get out of your previous debt by foregoing purchases here and there and putting that money aside to put towards your bills as soon as possible so you don't have to pay any more interest on it. In due time, they will go away and you will be able to live debt-free again.

Learn Something New

Stop wasting your time when you come home from school or work. Instead of playing video games or sitting on the couch and watching a re-run of Seinfeld that you've seen two times previously, do something great with your life. Take up something that you can use that will actually better your life. Think of all the times you've wasted sitting on the couch, when you could have put 45 minutes a day into playing the piano or learning Italian. Those little breaks through the day can add up to hours and hours within a year, so make your every waking moment count.

Enjoy Life More

As previously stated, you've only got one life on this Earth. So enjoy it. Take up a hobby that you enjoy. Take out a little time each day to do something for you. Moreover, reduce your stress at home and at work. If a dog is going to mitigate the stress in your life, get that Yorkshire Terrier you've always dreamed of. If reading a book, calms down your nerves when you get tense because of a "bad day", go to Barnes and Noble on Sunday to pick up that Michael Crichton book you heard was great. Do things for you and create your own alone time in which you are productive.

Volunteer to Help Others

Start helping others. More times than not, people can be a whole lot more productive in their lives than they actually are. Why not use that time to help another who is in dire need for it. Use your time in the most productive way possible. Whether it's helping to send food to a starving kid in Africa or volunteering with Make-A-Wish Foundation to send that 4 year old girl with cancer to Disneyworld, start acting now. People do need your help.

Whatever your goals, consider them priority from now on, and do whatever you need to in order to achieve these goals. Drop your free time to learn a new language. Forego your "alone time" watching TV to go out and spend the day with your family or volunteer your time to help at the local boys and girls club. Because in the end, you won't remember little things like watching an episode of Married With Children, but you can bet your weekly paycheck that learning to play the piano for a lifetime is a lot more worthwhile. Forego the little things to achieve the extraordinary.