The New Year resolution path is paved with good intentions. The winter days are noticeably longer, providing more time to step back and take a personal inventory: How am I doing? I interviewed a random sample of gym members in a Long Island health club, Life Fitness, and discovered that the difference between resolution success and failure is the ability to discern a wish from a resolution. In other words, do you wish to lose weight or do you have a specific daily plan?

Also, be aware that you might be a self-saboteur. This means that on some subconscious level you might not really want to lose the weight to look better or reduce your endless to-do list to create time for relaxation. You hold on to the familiar – even if it is negative. Of course, eating fat and sugar to fill an empty heart is satisfying and stress-relieving and being crazy busy means that you don’t have time to think about the root causes of having lost your true identity and even more important, your capacity for happiness. You are accustomed to a frazzled life-style where you can’t fit in fitness because by now your neurotransmitters are yearning for the stimulation – the surge of adrenalin. Consequently, if you had some quiet time, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself!

Self-improvement isn’t limited to resolutions made on New Year’s Day.

Here are some tips to get on track:

• Tighten your mind. A loose mind means that you are unfocused and go through activities of daily living with a porous consciousness. Engage in single-minded tasking and shut out extraneous thoughts. Stay alert to be alive. If you are driving and don’t know how you got there, then you have a loose mind. How can you stay on track with self-improvement, if you can’t focus on your driving?
  
• Choose your words carefully to express your real self in all that you do - as though you were a brand and had a single message to deliver. This is your “essence” statement which will propel you forward in achieving your goals.
  
• Avoid sweeping assertions like I’m going to lose ten pounds. Be specific about the changes you plan to implement. For example, weight loss tends to be more successful with programs that provide you with meals.
  
• Accountability works with the right kind of friends, those people who will truly encourage you and not secretly undermine you because they prefer you to be the underdog.

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For more information on managing your stress and reclaiming your life read my book, Addicted to Stress: A Woman's 7 Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life. To listen to archived radio shows with guest experts visit Turn On Your Inner Light Radio Show