Hugh Laurie was one of my favorite people growing up. Let alone that he’s an accomplished actor with mad piano skills, "House"was half of what my friends and I talked about in middle school and high school. Then I found out he's British and, needless to say, I worshiped him.

I recently ran across a quote of his and it really got me thinking about the New Year coming soon.

He said:

“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as ever.”

Tad wordy. But it all comes down to this: “You’re never ready. So do it now.”

That’s the motto. (Eat your heart out Drake, it’s not 2012 anymore).

It’s the motto because he’s absolutely right. People make New Year Resolutions in the hopes that on this day, they’ll finally be ready to accomplish things. Does this sound familiar?

“New Year, new me! Here’s to losing 10 pounds, killing it while working overtime, getting a 4.0 GPA, getting up early every day to go to the gym, volunteering at the Humane Society, and finishing my vampire historical-medical-drama-comedy novel that’s bound to make me millions as a bestseller all in the month ofJanuary. Yeah, here we go!”

Whoa, slow down! Wanting to be healthier and have a better work ethic are great things but most New Years resolutions turn out to be a waste of time because people want to do too much at one time. On top of that, everyone waits for this one day, Jan. 1^st, and swears that it is the day they will be “ready."

But as you probably already know, Jan. 1^st becomes a hangover day and then you swear tomorrow everything will change. Or maybe the next day, or the next day, until a month passes and you realize you didn’t even try to do the things you were supposed to. Then you're stuck thinking that you weren’t as ready as you thought you were going to be.

But think about this for a moment. You have more power than you think you do to drastically change your life. What's stopping you from putting down your phone, packing you bags and moving to a foreign country and becoming a nomad? Do you want to? Possibly not. Could you? Absolutely.

So if you can be a nomad at any given moment, surely you can drive five minutes to the gym you pay a membership to, for some reason, and run on a treadmill for 30 minutes. You have that power, it's just a matter of whether it's important enough to you or not.

I love seeing people genuinely try to improve their lives through their habits. It's admirable to see someone really stick it out and get in shape, or start volunteering, or even write the most nonsensical genre-bending novel. I can't help but notice that the most successful people that I've seen actually change their lives only did so by changing one thing at a time. That has to be easier than trying to become a perfect human being all at once.

So Hugh said it best. You’re never “ready” for things so there’s no use in waiting. Whatever you have in mind to do, you should go out and do it now. Planning accordingly goes without saying, but you don’t have to wait until January 1^st.