It's official, we have made it to 2017! As I addressed in my previous article ( Lessons we Should Take From 2016) 2016 was a rough year for many. Lives were lost, goals were not met, and there were many surprises from the past year, but that should not keep us from being optimistic about 2017. With 2016 in the review mirror and 2017 on the horizon, there are plenty of reasons to be excited for the road ahead.

1. New Opportunities

With a new year finally here, there will be 365 opportunities to make 2017 one of your best years ever. If you are blessed to see another day, you are blessed with another opportunity to get better. There are new opportunities to be found every day, and if you take advantage of those daily opportunities, you will find yourself in a much better position around this time next year.

2. A chance to reinvent yourself

You guys like to "New year, new me" right? Well, the beginning of the new year is a good time to get started on your promise! Amongst the plenty of new opportunities you will have in the new year, you will also find that many of these opportunities will be chances for you to reinvent yourself. If you were too soft spoken last year, you can work on being more assertive. If you were a little anti-social, you can work on being more social this year. Do not let anyone determine who you are and what you can and can't do. And even if you don't start at the beginning of the year, every day you have a chance to reinvent yourself and take that progress into next year.

3. Growth

Taking the lessons you learned from 2016 along with the new opportunities to reinvent yourself and many others in 2017, you can make substantial growth this year. When taking advantage of the opportunities 2017 has to offer, whether the outcome is positive or negative, you can still learn something from it. If you learn from those lessons and use them to prepare yourself for the future, you can grow from every opportunity you come across.

Most of all, 2017 will be what you make of it. It can be as good or as a bad as you make it, but I know most of us aren't planning to make 2017 a bad year. If we take advantage of the opportunities 2017 gives us to reinvent ourselves and grow, 2017 will be bright for many.