New Year's Resolution

A New Year's Resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a project or a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous. New Year's resolutions are a dime a dozen so with that thought in mind, having a dozen would be good. There are 12 months so we are to come up with one resolution for each month. New Year's resolutions involve making vows to do better in the coming year. In order to have successful resolutions, I have to learn to “respect my bad habits." Habits don't develop in a vacuum. For years, my old habits served function that has helped me to reduce stress, to enhance socialization, to make tasks feel easier. I know I can’t just give up a bad habit (quit smoking was hard enough), especially if it has endured for a long period of time, without understanding the value of my habit and considering methods for replacing it with something easier to adapt with. Rather than “beating” my habits, I need to understand that my habits as my “weaknesses” similar to people with disabilities who have learned to accept and adapt life with their “weaknesses” in terms of disabilities. We all have disabilities in one form or another. Most are “invisible” than visible. Accepting may be the most important step toward finding success and happiness by focusing on the term “All disabilities or weaknesses are part of life’s challenges". By learning to develop compensatory strategies rather than try to “fix” the weaknesses (disabilities). Develop strategies that will help me develop "success attributes" which is a set of characteristics that help define my attitude and effort put into overcoming my weaknesses. These included self-awareness, my ability to accept the existence of my weaknesses and identify my strengths and weaknesses rather than dwell solely on the negative aspects of my weaknesses.

Quotes on New Year’s Resolutions
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets. ~William Thomas

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. --Samuel Johnson

Let us resolve to be masters, not the victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions. --John F. Kennedy

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing. --Abraham Lincoln

'Where there is a will there is a way,' is an old and true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. --Samuel Smiles

Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits. ~~Anonymous

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other. ~~Anonymous

New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. ~~ James Agate

Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle. ~~ Eric Zorn

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~~ Bill Vaughan