It's that time of year again.

That time when all the magazines at the check-out counter are shouting about how you can lose 20 lbs in a month on their new diet, or how you can FINALLY get organized this year.  Need to quit smoking?  THIS time, you can really do it.  Need to learn to (fill in the blank) and finally (another blank) and make it stick?  We can show you how.

The gyms will be full--at least up until Valentines Day, when most have dropped out in favor of chocolate and self-forgiveness. 

I am a big fan of self-forgiveness!  I've got lots of things I should do--and undo, accomplish, learn, commit to, many other shoulds.  But after my first thirty or so New Year's Resolutions came and went, the majority of which were unfulfilled, I realized New Year's Resolutions didn't motivate me.  They do work for some, no doubt.  But I did hate the gym that first few months when it would become so crowded.  (At some point, I quit the gym, too--in favor of walking my dog every day and stretching in my bedroom floor.)

In the intervening years, I had to distill it down to this: is my goal realistic?  If not, can I break it into sections, to be accomplished one at a time?  If I can't do that, what is unrealistic about it?  If it is realistic, what--in tangible, concrete terms--will allow me to accomplish it?  And lastly--what does January 1st have to do with it?  For some reason, my goal setting urges seem to hit in the fall.  I clean, organize, analyze, and study what changes I want to make.  I don't always accomplish them, but I manage enough that I have learned what works for me.

What do you do when you want to make a change, and stick to it?  What do you want to accomplish this year?