Release Date: Friday, January 11, 2008

Resolutions for life

If you've already slipped up on some of your New Year's resolutions, you can start again. You can also reevaluate what's truly worthwhile! And, if you decide something's worthwhile, but you've struggled with it for the last three (or six or 10) years, consider a new approach.

What you really want is to be happy. Some of those things on your list — yes, the new boyfriend, the size 8, the promotion — are byproducts of happy!

Here's a list of resolutions we must keep — or at least keep working at — if we are to be truly happy!

1. Discern the difference between what you have been taught and what you truly believe. It's OK to do this, really. And I'm not asking you to give up Santa Claus.
2. Replace beliefs that don't serve your highest good with ones that do. You just woke up...and you're Forrest Gump! There's nothing you can't do!
3. Do only what you really want to do. Goodbye, anger and resentment! Hello, happy and free!
4. Get out of a house or a job or a relationship that betrays who you are. Then, one step at a time, move to your own music until you're dancing like you've never danced before!
5. Assume responsibility for your own "stuff." No blaming, no defending, no excuses.
6. If you're sorry, forgive yourself. Then get up and do something about it.
7. Decide you want to be happy...anyway (regardless of the "reasons" not to be).
8. Give what seems to be lacking in your life and your relationships — whether it's kindness or sex or hope. And, you got it!
9. Find what you want inside before you go looking for it in something or somebody else. Yes, it's in there!
10. Keep believing in love. No matter what.
11. Keep believing in others, but don't gamble on when they are going to get their act together.
12. Decide what your source is … and quit looking elsewhere for what you want.
13. Remember that the only thing that matters is what's inside — what you can't see. And it's the same in all of us. Goodbye, jealousy and pride!
14. Don't play small; and don't play big. Be big. Really big!
15. Show compassion with respect. Don't give somebody a handout when you can give him a chance to contribute!
16. Free yourself from frustration with other people. They're doing the best they can. If you stop personalizing their behavior, you can help them to do better.
17. Quit trying to be a better person than you are. If you can be just half as good as you are, you just might find yourself walking on water!
18. Remember that success is in going for it, not getting it.
19. Practice conscious choices — but only until you're so good at them that you can make them unconsciously.
20. This one's for you. Think of what I left out.

Happy is really as simple as being true to yourself. And everything else you want is a byproduct of happy. And no, I'm not forgetting about God. I just think He (in one way or another) made you in His image.