Your New Year's resolutions - buffet style

Not everyone knows what to resolve as they march bravely into the New Year. The usual suspects for the list include: quit smoking, lose weight, and… well, actually, that concludes the average list.

Care for some more ideas? As a motivational speaker, I try (and occasionally even succeed) to think about this subject all year long. Here are some suggestions from the Ideas Bar. Feel free to step up to the buffet and pick and choose whatever looks good and relevant to you:

Idea number one: I resolve to monitor my input a little more closely: Are the girls of Heff's House really adding anything to the quality of my life? Is Redneck Island? The Young and the Vacuous? I hereby resolve that I will occasionally pass up Mills and Swoon in favour of an author I've never read, writing about a country in which I do not reside. From time to time, the Planetarium can take the place of the flat-screen, and the news the place of Heat's horoscope.

Idea number two: I resolve to set numbers to my goals: Every movement at gym can be measured in either weight, time or heart-rate. And what can be measured can be standardized and then increased. Every aspiring writer can set a daily word-count. And faithfully observed daily word-counts gradually add up to entire novels. Anyone who wants a promotion / to sell more / to see more clients can set a number to the calls / activities / steps taken toward their goals on a daily basis. And diligent tending of numbers creates careers that others stand in awe of.

Idea number three: I resolve to turn my communication around more promptly: I will not let emails pile up on my PC, letters litter the kitchen, calls to my cell voice-mail go unreturned, nor will I allow human beings, generally, to wait for my response. Even if my messages are short, and far from Shakespearian, they will be timely.

Idea number four: I shall display more discipline in my daily activities: If I say I'm going to exercise, that's what I'll do. My mood, emotions, feelings or upturned top lip notwithstanding; If I determine to go, I will go. If I mean to do, I will do. I will make discipline-decisions in small increments each day, the sum of which will be a life lived by design.

Idea number five: I resolve to sit down and write out the five or six things that matter most to me in life: I will then come up with very simple, totally doable action plans for each. For instance, if spirituality is important to me, I will go to church each week, or read Scripture each morning. If money management matters in my world, I will read three books on competent money management. If culture moves me, I will forfeit the perpetual spew of SABC programming, and actually go to cine nouveau.

Idea number six: I resolve to seek out and book myself into at least one course that will add value to my life: Before the week is out, I will have called that long-distance university, booked for that online seminar, organized public speaking training or bought and started reading that book by the leading topic expert.

Is that enough to get you going? Good. Now don't think about it too much. Just do it. Select the ideas that appeal to you and make time for them, preferably today, or at the latest, during the course of this week. Add them to anything you may already have, and may The Force be with you! But do take a moment to remember where that force comes from; ain't no one gonna donate it to ya, soldier! It's all you now. Go get ‘em!

Here's to making 2010 great.