by Ron Williams 

It’s January 1. You are sitting on the couch in front of a football game or reality show marathon thinking about 2007, the new possibilities, and the ridiculous resolutions you made the night before. You think, “Who cares about those resolutions anyway? Where’s that self-help book I bought last year? Maybe I should start with that.”

We’ve all been there, but let’s be honest; no book or article that you’re going to read in 2007 is going to change your life. No seminar, conference, or class is going to get you where you want to be. Likewise, your next therapy appointment, coaching session, or advisory board meeting will not improve your family life, get you promoted, or make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Those things can all be helpful tools, but you need to start with a decision and the will to change.

Yes, the starting point for any willful change in life is purely and simply a decision--your decision, really. You must begin with your understanding of you and, most importantly, your determination that something has to change, that something has to be different, that somehow, someway, you need to go beyond where you are and who you are to achieve something else, something better.

For the upcoming year you could decide to focus on how you’re going to make changes. You could evaluate your situation, establish and prioritize your goals, develop a strategy, plan your next steps, and develop a timeline. You could do those things, and each step is truly critical to accomplishing your goals; however, unless you make the decision to start, all you will have is a nicely collated packet of paper and plans.
 
To accomplish anything new, you must make the decision to start. You must make the determination to do something, because really, if you do not determine to get yourself off the bench and into the game, you can be absolutely sure you will not accomplish what you always wished you could.

Making the decision to start  seems simple, yet making a committed decision is one of the most difficult things for most of us to do. How, then, do you get to that decision-making point?

Embrace your Fear of Failure. We’re so conditioned in life that failure will ruin us that we can’t step out of our carefully constructed shadow box. We’re stuck looking into the headlights, sitting in the passenger seat. It’s easier to plan than to do. It’s easier to look than to leap. The great reality is that any decision to accomplish anything at all might end as an all-out bomb. You might fail miserably in your attempt to achieve your dream (and let’s face it, we all do fail at some point). On the other hand, you just may succeed, and maybe, just maybe accomplish something truly fulfilling along the way.

Embrace your Desire to Change. If you made a resolution of any sort in the past, there’s a good chance you have a desire to do something differently. We all want to change something, but do we want that new change bad enough to do something about it? If you find yourself saying, “I’ve always wanted to . . .” or “Wouldn’t it be great if . . .” or even “I wish I could . . .”, then there is probably a reason. You probably already have the desire to change.

Embrace your Ability to Improve Your Situation. There’s nothing more applicable to starting the new year than the understanding that we are all the CEOs of our own lives. As such, it’s our responsibility to steer ourselves toward happiness, contentment, prosperity, and everything else we might want to attain in life. It’s our ship, so to speak. As humans, we have the unique ability to affect positive change in our own lives.

If you are anything like me and frequently see yourself at a crossroad, then the ability to make a decision to change anything at all seems quite daunting, yet the simple fact is we make decisions all the time, every day, small decisions that affect our path, direction, or future choices.

For any goal or resolution, for any change that will impact who you are or who you want to be, you will need to make a decision. You need to make a determination to change something, a resolution to do something. Do you believe in yourself enough to make that decision?

Ron Williams is senior partner with The Bron Group. He can be reached at 860-759-9595 or ron.williams@thebrongroup.com.