Alright guys, we're in the home stretch. It's the end of the year and we're all sending in our year-end evaluations. Now we're all probably asking ourselves the tough questions like, 'What did I do this year? What did I see? Where have I been?' Some of us, a chosen few, will follow these questions up with satisfactory answers. But a good portion of us will not. We will lament for some time and then vow that things will be different in the upcoming year. Things will be better. Riding that wave of optimism, we begin to craft these elaborate resolutions in hopes of making the upcoming year the best one yet. But before you start that list, here's my suggestion. Stop all of that. The one question you should be asking yourself is, 'Has this ever worked in the years before?' Nope. So stop waiting for the perfect moment to reinvent yourself or do whatever it is you plan to do. That's the other thing, when making plans, make sure you've established sort of basis for how you intend to go about this process. Don't withhold yourself from moments because you are waiting on the perfect one to come. We get so caught up in the idea of things that we forget the central premise behind any great idea - the action part. More importantly, if the idea is to become a better you, does it really matter at what point of the year you start to pursue it?

Let's start thinking in terms smaller than years - I'm thinking thoughts. What if we put the same value on our plans at any given point in the year as we did at the start of a new year? What if resolution wasn't limited to the New Year? If we focus on smaller aspects like how we could be better in our next thought than we were in our last instead of comparing ourselves year by year, we may just see a greater result. If this idea really bothers you, then I encourage you to ignore it...it was only just a thought. But in all seriousness, a lot of our resolutions fall through due to our lack of initiative in the 'action' stage of any grand plan. Unfortunately, we think that waiting for the perfect moment when we feel inspired, aka New Years, will be enough to make our aspirations reality. That's great! But a lot of us don't know what to do when that initial excitement wears off. We must inspire ourselves to continue pursuing that goal and rely less on external forces. Life doesn't have favorites, you have to be your own. So either try to find your inspiration at all times of the year, or accept that you're so great there is clearly nothing to improve on, like I did.