Editorial
New Year’s Resolutions Offer Chance For Fresh Start

The only New Year’s resolution we’ve managed to keep with any degree of consistency is a resolution not to make any resolutions. Too often we find that lofty ideals can end up dashed on the rocks of reality.

However, “fast away the old year passes”, as “Deck The Halls’ has it, and we still find ourselves thinking in terms of a new year bringing with it a chance for a fresh start. It may be a good time to look at this resolution business from a different angle.

Many of us resolve to achieve a particular goal but don’t make any clear plans as to how to go about it. Still worse, because we fail to reach a goal that poor planning has made unattainable, we feel guilty and punish ourselves for having failed.

As we know to our cost, simply resolving not to overeat, under-exercise, use bad language or lose one’s temper doesn’t work too well for very long. We couch too many resolutions in terms that set us up to fail. Resolutions are easier to keep if they set forth an achievable goal, include a plan for reaching that goal and add some positive reinforcement to sweeten the deal.

In this coming year 2007, we suggest that it may be time to stop feeling guilty for what we have failed to do and start feeling good about what we accomplish. At midnight this coming Sunday, December 31, the first six years of the new century and the new millennium will have drawn to a close. In those first six years, did we accomplish what we wanted to do, whatever it was—lose weight, exercise more, read a book, take a course in underwater basket weaving? We congratulate those who did. For those of us who did not—and we include ourselves— we point out that these are all achievable goals. We can accomplish whatever it is we set out to do if we have a reachable goal and a plan for attaining it. And when we achieve a goal under those circumstances, we’ll feel good about ourselves and we’ll go on to set more goals and in turn reach them. That’s not a bad way to start a new year.

As we anticipate the start of 2007, we do, in fact, resolve to do the things we set out to do by planning how to achieve our goals, enlisting whatever support is necessary and then getting on with the job. Aspirations and accomplishments are both the burden and the joy of being human. We can lessen the burden and add to the joy if we approach our chosen tasks in a practical way that makes fulfilling our ambitions possible.

Whatever you resolve to do in the coming year, we wish you success in attaining your goal—success that will make the new year truly a happy one. Happy New Year from all of us to all of you, whoever and wherever you are, and the best of luck for whatever you resolve to do between January and December 2007.