New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Eve has always been a time for looking back to the past, and more importantly, a time to look forward to the coming year. The end of a year pushes us to reflect on what we have achieved during the finishing year and to plan the changes we want to make for the coming one. However, many resolutions go unachieved and are often broken fairly shortly after they are set.

Among the most common New Year resolutions, we find:

But why we didn't spend time with the family this year? And why are we going to force ourselves to do it next year?. Most people who really enjoy spending time with their families will do it anyway. They will always put family first. Only those who get bored, fed up or cannot stand their relatives are the ones who need to be reminded that they need to spend more time with them.

My advice is, that if you were happy last year doing something else but being with your family... do it again next year! No point in making yourself unhappy just to fill in the so called ‘quality time'.

This is a classic. You have survived all the Christmas parties, you have eaten like there's no tomorrow, and now nothing fits you for new year's eve. First response: Next year I will exercise more. In fact you will only dance the night away the 31st and after that you will be so exhausted that the only exercise you do will be eyelid exercises in front of the TV.

3) Lose weight.

The same as the above. Nothing fits after all the Christmas chocolate, foie gras, wine and beer. So next year, after new year's eve dinner you will start your diet programme!!! We all have been through this one year after year... and we're still overweight!

Now, if you never stopped smoking a few months after you started, if you continued smoking as soon as your baby was born, and never stopped when your uncle died of lung cancer... forget it!

5) Enjoy life more.

So what have you been doing until now?

6) Stop drinking alcohol.

This is my favourite one after the new year's party!! Don't we all go through this one after two days celebrating the new year, when we are staring at the toilet bowl?

7) Get out of debt.

Translate this one as find a rich husband or wear last season's clothes again!

8) Learn something new.

Have you vowed to make this year the year to learn something new? Perhaps you are considering a career change, want to learn a new language, or just how to fix your computer? Or perhaps you just want to learn where are going to be the new hot spots for 2008? Or, going back to your previous resolution, learn how to find a rich husband?

9) Help others.

A popular, non-selfish New Year's resolution. But, shouldn't have you been doing that up to now? You selfish bug... Maybe you just want to help friends find their way home after the party, or help friends empty their personal bars so they can keep to resolution number 6 stop - drinking alcohol!

10) Get organized.

On just about every New Year resolution top ten list, organization can be a very reasonable goal. You will need organization to keep to your other 9 resolutions. Why do you think you have never kept to them before?