Welcome again, my friends, to the height of gym membership purchases, diet subscriptions, and quitting jobs that we hate. Once again, it's January of a new year. You probably clicked on this article expecting to read a list of New Year's resolutions that you should make -- list of exhausted cliches that are ultimately doomed to fail. The truth is, we are beings that are rarely motivated to continue good habits if we don't receive instant gratification. We are unlikely to continue going to the gym and hopping on the elliptical if we don't drop five pounds in two days. I have news for you with regards to any expectations you may have had clicking on this article. You have inadvertently wandered upon a call to action. Maybe that scares you, but it shouldn't. After all, isn't this the time of the year we are strongly inspired and welcome change willingly?

I could tell everyone to be kind, or to exude more light. I could tell everyone to reconnect with old friends and extinguish old flames. I could tell everyone to recycle. But I want something different for 2016, for me, for those I love, for those I will be blessed to meet in the future.

I propose a new breed of resolutions. A New Year is a holiday that we have made entirely about killing old habits and allowing new, better habits to be born. I suggest that instead of compensating for the small amounts of pain the new year will inevitably bring, we brace ourselves and greet pain as an old friend, armed with lessons learned in the past. We get ready to cry, and laugh, and breathe in the new year in all of its glory.

I suggest that we leap into 2016 full speed, our teeth bared and our hearts vulnerable. Allow the year to bring awful bosses, cheating exes, gained weight, bad dates, bad grades. Welcome these misfortunes because they will only help us to grow throughout the year. Remove the expectations and standards from ourselves and from other people. Remember 2015 not as the year in which I made a lot of mistakes but, instead, as the year in which I learned more about myself and grew more as a person than any year before.

We set ourselves up for failure by telling ourselves to only have good days, good relationships, successful diets. We hold ourselves to impossible standards and emerge from the past year feeling unfulfilled as a result. One of the worst mistakes we can make is to assume that we are capable of perfection. If we welcome failure and embrace it, then our successes in love and in life will only shine brighter by comparison. I encourage all of you to prepare for 2016, fearless. Do not place such impossibly high expectations on yourself. No more of this "New Year, new me." Eat what you want, kiss whom you want, jog when you want to (if you want to), love family, friends, and life wholeheartedly, and please have no fear of making mistakes.

You have an untapped wealth of wisdom gathered from last year, and more that is soon to be acquired. New Year? No pressure.