It’s the start of a new year and as others have noted, a time when we’re filled with enthusiasm to make those changes we’ve been promising to make. The problem is, that kind of enthusiasm generally doesn’t last through the doldrums of winter.

I’ve been posting New Year’s quotes over on FaceBook and I notice a trend in the quotations that are appealing to me.

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” ~Hal Borland

“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.” ~ Buddha

I don’t make resolutions but that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals. As such, I like what Leo had to say, especially “Reinvent yourself, every day.”

The problem I have with big goals at the new year is that it is just my old procrastination behavior in another guise. “I’ll start on Monday,” “I’ll begin again at the beginning of the month,” “I’ve already had a bad day, week, month… I will start again …”

For me to be successful I have to start again every day – sometimes more than once in a day. I have to let go of past failures and expectations and believe I can do this right now. It’s hard. These are very old habits.

“Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.” ~Brooks Atkinson