You can still salvage 2007

Even with the best intentions, we often find ourselves at this point in the year wondering, "What happened to those resolutions I made at the beginning of the year?"

You may even be in a really bad situation because of something you
overlooked or did thoughtlessly. Well, if you’re reading this, you may
still have a chance to turn things around.

If you are like many of the people I know, you have been throwing yourself at one challenge or another for three months and you still have a whole bunch of unkept promises made to yourself and others.

First of all, stop beating yourself up. What’s done is done. Apologizing will not undo it. You probably made a judgement call on bad data or lost track of your real objectives in life. Whatever!

If anyone asks, just say that it seemed to make sense at the time.

That is the honest truth in most cases and will let you get off the topic and on to making a different future for yourself.

Now, about making a fresh start. How about right now? Not tomorrow after breakfast or next week when the family is gone. If you are interested, here is one way to do it:

Write down your most immediate and serious problem. Find one thing you
can do about it today and do it. Don’t get distracted by all of your
other problems, just persist and do the one thing you set out to do.

Once you have accomplished that, decide what you need to do next about
that problem and either do it or pick the next biggest problem and find
what you can do about that one.

Resist the temptation to get overwhelmed. Of course you have more than
one problem to deal with or you wouldn’t be in this bad situation or
buried in undone resolutions.

Just keep your eye on the biggest problem facing you and find something
about that problem you can solve. If you keep doing that, you will dig
yourself out of almost any hole you have put yourself into.

How do I know that? I’ve been there and done that too many times to count!

Now, what about the problems that you cannot resolve in this way? Well,
you may have actually boxed yourself into a corner and have taken on a
mortgage that you cannot pay. Or, you may have gotten into a personal
or business relationship without a full understanding of who you were
dealing with.

You can still handle these in the same way, except that the solution
lies not in fixing the problem, but in removing it from your life. You
have come to a fork in the road. Take it.

Just make sure that you
handle the reason that you made the mistake in the first place, or you
will find yourself at this same fork in the road a few years hence.

Again, I speak from hard-won experience. If you spend time and money on
handling your self-destructive impulses, it is time and money
well-spent.

No matter where you are today versus your lifetime goals, you can make
a fresh start and give yourself a new lease on life by deciding that
this might be a good day to start a better and happier life for
yourself.

You will be absolutely surprised by how many people will
recognize that you are making a new effort and will help you. You don’t
have to announce it to the world. Your actions will speak much louder
than words.

Be well…