Taking stock

Before getting ready to go out tonight, you may want to spend some quiet time taking stock of 2009.

Think about the different areas of your life that are important to you right now (home, finances, family, love, fun, spirituality, work, health, fitness and so on). Make a list of your achievements in each area.

Think also about your (dare I say it?) failures. This is not to make you feel badly about yourself but simply to acknowledge what hasn't worked for you in the past.

What lessons have you learned from them?

Now that you've acknowledged them (just to yourself. You don't need to go over the top), what ideas do you have for doing things differently in 2010?

Learn from the past by acknowledging it - good and bad.

Then party the year away knowing that you can recreate your achievements in 2010 without repeating mistakes.

Happy New Year!

Thinking of making the same impossible seeming resolutions again?

Don't lose faith in yourself. If it's a big goal, it may well take a long time to create a new habit around it. (Personally speaking, I'd been repeatedly trying to give up one self-destructive habit for 23 years before finally kicking it this year).

To help motivate you, think of the Indian lorry driver, Ramchandra Das who made the news recently. The 53 year old spent 14 years chipping away at the mountain in Bihar that blocked his house with a hammer.

While I'm no architecht, this sounds like it could have been a pretty risky strategy (if the mountain had collapsed) but all worked out well and Mr Das no longer needs to park several miles from his home.

What will be your mountain in 2010? Is it a big habit you're trying to kick? An enormous goal you still haven't reached?

Don't give up.

The time will pass whether you achieve what you want or not so you might as well start taking those steps that will get you closer to a life you're happier living.

Happy Christmas!