Very few people actually set New Year Resolutions. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that very few people have EVER set a New Year Resolution in their life. Sure, they set new Year Wishes and make New Year Dreams, but few can actually be called a resolution. Their New Year Resolutions are, in fact, missing this key ingredient.

If you’re like 92% of those who set any goals at all, you’re looking in the mirror right about now feeling guilty and disappointed with the person you didn’t quite become. With goal-setting odds stacked overwhelmingly against you (all but a mere 8% crash and burn somewhere between January’s excitement and December’s memory lapse), it’s easy to feel those nasty little joy-suckers of shame, disappointment and regret. But maybe you don;t have to feel that way…

If you have a passion for something, pursue it! If it courses in your veins, give it life. Develop your talents. Become great at what you do. There is beauty and life and happiness and meaning in it irrespective of the dollar value others will or will not pay you to express it.

It’s not that people who do great things are great people and the rest of us shmoes are the gray residue stuck at the bottom of the ordinary barrel. It’s that they are willing to …

Life is in constant flux. Its in constant motion, growing and shrinking, lifting and falling in undulating waves of constant change. To simply stay on course, therefore, requires internal mobility—a willingness to bend and adapt, to learn and grow.

As a high school teacher, I send almost 200 kids off into the world every year to try figure out where they fit in the world. But if I’ve merely taught them the finer points of the subjects I teach, I believe I’ve failed them. The following words are a more polished version of what I share with them each year on the last day of class.

Find the burning WHY that drives you and the HOW will follow. Your WHY is what burns in your soul. It is the reason behind your activity. It is the fundamental purpose and passion that animates you.

There’s a reason Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan and not Michael Phelps or Michael J. Fox or Michael Jackson. His name became synonymous with basketball because basketball is what he focused all his time on. He lived and breathed it. He married it. What have you married? What do you live and breathe?

To say I’ve been unfocused in the wilderness of new ideas is an understatement. But as the old proverb goes, if you chase two rabbits, you won’t catch either one. I would add that if you’re chasing 20 rabbits, a raccoon and a squirrel or two, you might as well say goodbye to everything else you used to do. And so am simplifying the online clutter I’ve been creating of late. See how…

“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” ~T.S. Eliot Are you on a path that does Read More.

A well-known motivational guru was once challenged about the very idea of motivation. His antagonist complained that motivation doesn’t work because it doesn’t last. It wears off, so can’t be all the guru suggested it was …

Life is a journey, a challenge to be mastered, but more importantly, to be learned from. But lessons, and the growth they promote, don’t come to us by taking the easy path. Downhill is still downhill. It takes you to the bottom. Paths of least resistance have always been attractive … until you get to where such paths take us.

Procrastination is an insidious habit that makes life more hectic, hurried and panicked. It robs us of peace, undermines excellence and degrades the joy that excellence produces. But does procrastination always undermine excellence, happiness and peace? Perhaps not.

Only 8% of goal-setters ever reach the goals they set. But the problem may be less an issue of will and more an issue of the kinds of goals you’re setting. Learn the best way to set the goals you will always enjoy pursuing and will more likely and easily reach.

Do you have an extra 5 hours a day you could devote to doing what you love? If you could find 5 hours, that would translate to and extra 34 hours a week, or 136 hours most months and 1,768 hours a year. That’s a whopping 8,840 hours in just 5 years’ time and 17,680 hours in a decade you can devote to learning something, overcoming something, developing something, to creating an amazing life. If you are anything like the national average, I can offer you the gift of those 5 extra hours, free of charge.

There are 2 complementary ways to learn how to do anything, whether it’s driving, playing a sport, a musical instrument, starting a business or becoming happy. One way is to learn what to do and how to do it. The other is to learn what not to do and how to avoid it. This is a sort of anti-map to happiness. A map that identify the potholes and detours and debris along the path to a happier life.

The questions we never ask can never produce the answers they would have led to. The questions we never ask fail to open paths or illuminate lives or introduce possibilities or redirect courses. The questions we never ask keep lights dim, insight shallow and lives floating, drifting and sometimes sinking. Drift and sink no more. Asked yourself these transformational questions?

I challenge you to do something you’ve always wanted to do. Or learn something you’ve wanted to learn. Or go somewhere you yearn to go. A talent you wish you had. A skill you want to develop. A hobby you want to pursue. But don’t wait. Start today. Not next year or next week or in a couple days. Tomorrow. At the latest.

Honesty, they say, is the best policy. It’s time we put it to the test. Have you ever gotten tangled up in your own web of lies? Are you in the habit of bending the truth? Do you fib and tell little white lies to get out of trouble or avoid drama or skirt confrontation or annoyances? Come take the honesty challenge and see how it affects your relationships, self-respect and life.

Some people go through life complaining about the weather, complaining about the economy, complaining about the neighborhood, even complaining when there’s isn’t enough to complain about! They moan and groan about anything and everything and nothing at all. Their complaints quickly become the sound of nails on chalk boards, their voices shrill with the whine of helplessness. It can be raining gold coins in their backyard and they’ll complain about the flowers crushed by the falling wealth. Stop it!