Make 2016 a "Can Do" year and make it all your own!

We're at the beginning of another new year and a lot of us use this day to reflect upon the last 365 days and look forward to the next. The lists of annual resolutions are made, but how may of us actually stick to them?

The New Year's resolutions are a bit like babies: They're fun to make but extremely difficult to maintain. According to Health magazine, each January roughly one in three Americans resolve to better themselves in some way. A much smaller percentage of people actually make good on those resolutions.

I'm starting 2016 out differently and I'm going to not make resolutions, but want to change my path and set new goals. Perhaps its the word "New Year's resolutions," that perhaps don't make them as important as they should be?

Friends of mine shared quotes this week that caused me to reflect more upon their meaning more so than usual.

Norman Vincent Peale said, "Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities... always see them... for they’re always there.”

While I don't really have dark times, I do face stress, have temporary problems as well as doubt myself a lot. I know that I'm not my own cheerleader as I know I should be.

This is going to change.

I'm starting off 2016 with what I CAN DO, not what I can't do.

I will share this journey with readers as I don't think I'm alone in not having the best diet, the best exercise routine, the best self esteem.

Researchers say the best way to make your New Year's Resolutions (or any goals) stick is to share them. Set a milestone and make it public they say.

Another quote I saw this week is from Brad Paisley, "Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book…write a good one."

Here is my page one, and my outline of the next year (we'll have to make it a 366 age book though since it's a leap year).

This year I'm going to:

1. Enjoy life to the fullest
2. Live a healthier lifestyle
3. Lose weight
4. Spend more time with family and friends
5. Save more, spend less
6. Be better tomorrow that I was today
7. Love myself more

Not bad for a "Can Do" list, eh?

Anne Carlson, a local "food coach" has told me that if we loose just one pound a week that is 52 pounds by this time next year! It's not a hard goal, and one that most of us can stick to because its not so restrictive that we'll give up. Another point she makes it that we have to love ourselves to fix what we need to fix.

One way that will keep me on my path to keeping to my seven resolutions is to plan and keep things written down. Management experts say that we won't stick to goals that are written down, hence my 366 page book. When you plan your body will follow your mind, so set a meaningful goal. Anticipate obstacles because they're real and will happen.

I will be keeping a journal during 2016, making each new page from ideas I've found on Pinterest and keep saying "someday I'll do that." Nothing like the present, right? In the journal I'll post progress, words of wisdom and frustrations, and of course, successes!

The key will be to start the day off right with the plan in site. If I hit a bump that took me of that path, the next day is a new beginning just as the first day of a new year is looked at as a free start.

One key will being patient and concentrate on my inner self and not just what everyone else sees on the outside. Change the inside, the outside will follow but not the other way around.

Christian speaker Joel Osteen said, "If you don’t let go of the disappointments in 2015, you won’t accomplish what you want in 2016." The past is the past the future is waiting for you to make great things out of it.

I don’t want to get to 2017 and think "woulda, coulda, shoulda."

So, today is page one in my 2016 Can Do Book.

What will page two say?