2012: This is Your Chance to Choose Your Changes!

Last year, I learned that less than 50 percent of us make New Year's Resolutions.  So I gently nudged my dear readers to try just a little, make simple painless changes, maybe, if they felt like it, etc. Well, you’re still dear to me, but I am pushing you harder this year towards setting and keeping Resolutions!

The New Year is not our only opportunity to make positive changes, but it is the most publicized, and extra resources exist now to help us make and keep our resolutions. Health club memberships and exercise equipment are discounted.  Programs abound for weight loss and smoking cessation, healthy recipes populate the media and groceries run specials on healthy foods. Professional organizers send information about goal-setting, paper management or National GO (Get Organized) Month. 

You are fabulous just the way you are, and I’m not suggesting you need to change. However, we all must realize that Change is inevitable. Things change every day, every minute of our life, and we can either be carried along with a wave, or we can start swimming. Change happens, no matter what, but we can guide the change if we are willing to make the effort. 

Per a blog I follow, Manage Better Now, I viewed a video recently of Matt Cutts, a bigwig at Google. He spent 2011 completing 30-day challenges, trying new things for 30 days. Turns out, "30 days is just the right time to start a new good habit or get rid of an old, bad habit,"according to him. His last line really resonated with me, "The next 30 days are going to pass, whether you like it or not." We might as well do something great with them!

Two words for you: Change and Choice. Make and keep Resolutions this year. If you don't need to let go of bad habits, work on establishing good habits you wish you had. Change is inevitable, but we choose our focus, and can make this a positive experience.

What's it going to be? Knowing that change will happen anyway, how will you choose to guide your change and your life in 2012? Here are some tips:

• If you are new to Resolutions, try choosing one good habit each from these areas: personal, family, home, spiritual and financial.
• Keep language is positive. Take on new things instead of focusing on losing.   
• Make choices for yourself, not for others.
• Make it public. Letting others in on your resolutions makes you more accountable for keeping them.  I’ll publish mine next week, after I’ve tweaked them a bit. 
• Throw in a couple of "gimmes" (per another blog I follow, Beyond Blue), easy goals that will take an hour or 2, and then you can feel good crossing them off your list.  Organizing your desk drawers or pantry, making a long delayed doctor's appointment, etc. 

You can do this, friend, I know you can! And you will be so happy when you do! 

Happy 2012!

This is part of the Jan. 2 edition of Colleen CPO's Blog.