What will you do with this New Year?
Will it be happy and full of cheer?
Will you, yes, live in passion and power?
And be truly fulfilled in new every hour?

Yes, what will you do with this New Year?
Will you take time to heal every old tear?
And live in the purpose that guides your path
And commit to let go of all useless wrath

Yes, this is the time to embrace this New Year
To make a commitment to not live in fear
But rather, I say, to live with true courage
And with each brother and sister, only encourage

As you now enter, yes, this brand New Year
Live from the present, the place we call “here”
Fear not the future and grieve not the past
But live every moment as if it’s your last

Yes, on this first day of this happy New Year
Remember your friends and loved ones so dear
Be grateful, I say, and count every blessing
And cast out the thoughts which are only distressing

So, what will you do now with this New Year?
Will you embrace it and see it so clear
Yes, give it the focus of vision and goals
And this year will give you a life fully whole

So I now say about this New Year
I am a blessed man and I hope you can hear
Take every challenge and find, yes, the gift
The gift is the lesson that will make your life shift

Come with me now into this New Year
And go, yes, so boldly as a true pioneer
Play only big and never look back
Reap only diamonds and ignore any lack…

And Marry YourSelf First!

As you think about the New Year, resolutions and new goals, here’s a template to help you be more clear, concise and thorough with your goal-setting and your goal-getting (no sense in setting them if you can’t “get them”, right?!!).

Start with the eight primary areas of your life and answer the corresponding questions from each area, and then add your own questions to formulate your goals.

Remember to make your goals SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Oriented.

Here are the eight primary areas of your life to start with:

SOCIAL NETWORK AND FRIENDS

• How are your friendships?
• How is your support network?
• How do you feel about your interpersonal skills?  

FAMILY AND YOUR INNER CIRCLE

• How are your relationships with your parents, siblings, children, spouse and extended family?  
• How is your “chosen” family; your inner circle?

VOCATIONAL, WORK AND VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT

• How satisfied are you with your current career?
• What would you rather be doing?
• What type of work has brought you the most satisfaction in the past?
• What do you do to “give back”?

PHYSICAL AND HEALTH

• How are your eating habits?
• How is your regular exercise program?
• How are your sleeping patterns?
• How is your weight? 
• How often do you see your medical professionals?                                   

RECREATIONAL, HOBBIES AND VACATIONS

• What do you do in your leisure time?
• How do you relax and have fun?
• What creative outlets do you have?  

FINANCIAL AND CASH FLOW

• What is your debt level?
• What are you doing to plan for the future? 
• How do you want your financial future to be different?                      

SPIRITUAL AND PERSONAL GROWTH

• How is your spirituality?
• How do you release your emotions?
• What do you do with emotional overload?
• What do you engage in (books, audios, workshops, etc.) to promote your personal growth?

RELATIONAL, ROMANCE AND SIGNIFICANT OTHER

• How is your love life?
• What do you do to keep the passion alive?
• How well do you communicate about the more difficult issues?
• How are your conflict resolution skills?
• If you’re single, how is the dating going?
• What do you want to be different here?

Then go a bit deeper into the core of your life (I dare you!!) and answer the following:

LIFE PURPOSE AND VISION

• Do you know what your life purpose is?
• Have you written your life purpose?
• Do you say it aloud daily?
• Do you have a vision for your life?
• Have you written your vision and/or created a vision map?
• Do you review your vision on a regular basis?

Now you may ask, why go to all this effort?

First of all, as the old saying goes, “No one plans to fail; people just fail to plan.”

And second, if you don’t have a personalized guidance system, some rules, some guidelines or some kind of tailored compass, you’re bound to get lost, feel confused and have an overall unproductive experience.

Create a plan for this New Year, and for your life, and you’re much more likely to achieve and experience everything you desire, and you’re much more likely to be happy, healthy, wealthy and very, very wise!

 Start Here: Marry YourSelf First!

I saw a report that said a man used a shared computer to log onto his wife’s e-mail account and discovered she was cheating. (I’m quite sure this isn’t the first time that this has happened…neither the cheating nor the snooping).

Evidently this guy has now been charged with felony computer misuse and faces five years in prison…Wow!! Do we really clutter our courtrooms with these ridiculous over-sensationalized relationship dysfunctions?

Really?!!

It is right or wrong for this guy to be charged (and maybe go to jail)?

Maybe that’s NOT the bigger issue.

There is something HUGE here on a more global level…it’s called “relationship intelligence” and there is a huge deficit of it in the world today.

If one of the people in a relationship has to snoop to find out what’s really going on, what does that say?

It suggests that there is a severe lack of openness and honesty (for starters).

How did it get this way?

When cases like this are brought into the light, it’s a great opportunity to look at the state of relationships in general.

When it comes to relationship intelligence, we have a failing grade.

Start with this: In mainstream education we don’t teach our kids anything about relationship skills, communication skills or how to deal with conflict, and many of us have had “less than desirable” role models growing up.

Boundaries, values and integrity…anyone have those classes?

Maybe we should let TV, movies and books with fictional stories teach us these things…right?

How about commitment, dedication and loyalty…maybe we should let these necessary dynamics of successful relationship occur by osmosis!

Getting back to the story, what do we really expect?

Openness and honesty?

No! Why should we? We’re surrounded by numerous drama-filled stories of deceit, deception and dishonesty that fill our airwaves, cable news headlines and newspapers every day.

And this case is just one of thousands of highly dysfunctional relationship situations that are occurring all the time.

As off the wall and odd as it may sound, how about we use these publicized relationship breakdowns as springboards to change things, rather than just sensational news items that become role models for future relationships?

I’m just asking…

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment or two below.

More from Ken Donaldson…

Marry YourSelf First!

Anger…What Is It, Where Does It Come From and Why Is It So Tough To Mange?

If you were going to answer these questions, where would you go?

Online?

Google?

Wikipedia?

If so, then you’ll appreciate this.

If not, then you’ll appreciate this even more.

Our friends at Wikipedia pulled together the following to describe anger:

• Anger is an emotion related to one’s perception of having been offended or wronged and a tendency to undo that wrongdoing by retaliation…a normal emotion that involves a strong uncomfortable and emotional response to a perceived provocation.
• Anger may have physical correlates such as increased heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline (a neurotransmitter).
• Some view anger as part of the fight or flight brain response to the perceived threat of harm.
• Anger becomes the predominant feeling behaviorally, cognitively, and physiologically when a person makes the conscious choice to take action to immediately stop the threatening behavior of another outside force.
• Anger can have many physical and mental consequences.
• The external expression of anger can be found in facial expressions, body language, physiological responses, and, at times, in public acts of aggression.
• Humans and animals make loud sounds, attempt to look physically larger, bare their teeth, and stare.
• The behaviors associated with anger are designed to warn aggressors to stop their threatening behavior.
• Rarely does a physical altercation occur without the prior expression of anger by at least one of the participants.
• While most of those who experience anger explain its arousal as a result of “what has happened to them,” psychologists point out that an angry person can be very well mistaken because anger causes a loss in self-monitoring capacity and objective observability (in other words, they don’t know what’s going on inside them and, instead, blame an outer stimulus, which is usually another person or set of circumstances).
• Modern psychologists view anger as a primary, natural, and mature emotion experienced by all humans at times, and as something that has functional value for survival.
• Anger can mobilize psychological resources for corrective action.
• Uncontrolled anger can negatively affect personal or social well-being.
• While many philosophers and writers have warned against the spontaneous and uncontrolled fits of anger, there has been disagreement over the intrinsic value of anger.
• Dealing with anger has been addressed in the writings of the earliest philosophers up to modern times.
• Modern psychologists, in contrast to the earlier writers, have pointed out the possible harmful effects of suppression of anger.
• Displays of anger can be used as a manipulation strategy for social influence.

 Well…what do YOU think?

Agree with all this? Some of it? Disagree?

The bottom line is that anger is a very powerful emotion which, when managed properly, can produce very significant results.

However, when mismanaged, it can be equally, or even more, damaging.

Unfortunately, too many times anger is mismanaged and misunderstood.

The end result is that most people most of time do NOT deal with anger appropriately.

Most people most of the time either over-react (the reactors) or under-react (the avoiders).

The reactors simply allow anger to control them, rather than them managing the anger.

(You ALWAYS have a choice and by NOT choosing you’re allowing the anger to be in charge.)

The reactors allow their “buttons to be pushed” by outer influences with no intervention. They, with realizing it most of the time, allow themselves to be “victimized” by outer sources.

The result is that the anger controls their thinking and their actions, which can be expressed as anything from sarcasm to violence, and everything in-between.

The avoiders, likewise, also allow themselves to be controlled by outer influences.

But when their buttons are pressed, instead of going towards a more explosive direction, they run.

The avoiders always see anger as dangerous and they do everything they can to both avoid anger and try to control anger in their environments.

In either case, the anger never gets truly addressed and is, instead, only reacted to.

SO…how about if you just tell yourself (and, of course, believe it!), “Anger is okay.”

Yes, like its normal, healthy and just another one of the many emotions.

And what if you then acted accordingly?

And what if you actually learned to manage anger (which isn’t really all that difficult…really!)?

One of the keys is to NOT try to manage other’s anger, only your response to it.

And what if you were able to tell ‘Younger You” that anger was okay and normal and healthy…how would that change the way you deal with it?

And Marry YourSelf First!

Read more from Ken Donaldson…