It's the New Year!! Now What?

So it's New Years. If you are like many, you know it is supposed to be a big deal closing out the old year and ringing in the new. But why? It seems too many people just use New Years Eve as another excuse to go out (or stay in) and party like its 1999 and not like its 2010. Hey- that's cool. But wouldn't it be better to look back on the last year and review how it went? The fact is 2009 was a very difficult year for a whole lot of people. With 14.2 million Americans losing jobs in 09, chances are pretty good that 2009 might not have been an exactly stellar year for you either. It wasn't for me. I was one of the 14.2 million. It happened to me last February. But it doesn't matter what happens to you that counts, its what you do about it that counts.

The one resolution I think that everyone ought to work on this year is Personal Development. I'm not talking about vowing to lose those 12 pounds you put on since Thanksgiving. Everyone makes that a New Years resolution. I'm talking about developing your mind to put you on the offense in 2010 as opposed of the defense like a lot of us found ourselves in 2009. This year if you vow to take more control of the direction for your life, you won't be hoping and praying that your name is not on the list of the next company re-organization plan at your job. Why not beat your employer to the punch and develop your own reorg. plan? You see if you don't develop your own plan for your life, chances are very good that you will end up in someone elses plan and chances are good that they won't be as good as the plan you can come up with for yourself.

So what should you read to start developing your own plan? Where should you start? The first book I would highly recommend for every American is "Think and Grow Rich" If you never read this book, you are in for a treat like you have never experienced. This book written by Napoleon Hill will teach you exactly how to think to start getting the things you want for your life. Too often we lose the ability to start dreaming and thinking about what we would like to be and acomplish in life. Circumstances beat us down to the point that we just start waiting for things to happen to us and how to defend against them. We lose our ability to dream and to aspire to do and be more like we used to do when we were children. As children everything was possible to us. Why aren't they now? They still can be. We just have to re-program our minds to realize we still can be and do whatever we set our minds to.

The next book I would highly recommend is "Why We Want You Rich". In this book Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki share some very terrifying facts about just how bad the state of our economy really is. They explain how impossible and naive it really is for us to think that we can just continue to work at our jobs and expect to retire on our 401k plans, Social Security, and Medi-Care. The bottom line is our Government is broke and going more in debt every day. They explain how rapidly the middle class is disappearing in our country. Very soon every American will either be rich or poor. They lay out a pretty comprehendable plan for everyone to start changing their thinking from one of entitlement and expecting a broke government to take care of us in the golden years, to one of personal responsabilty to create wealth for ourselves and to be self sufficient. A must read for anyone who has any dealings with money. That is everyone.

Well there are two suggestions from me to you to start you on a better path this year then you may have found yourself on last year. We should all make a commitment this year to work on living an intentional life. One where we decide to make things happen for ourselves before we simply let things happen to us. Our country has a lot of problems that we must deal with. But I personally believe we can eliminate a great deal of them if we all just start to take care of ourselves and quit waiting for someone else to solve them for us. This starts with a paradigm shift in our value system. Please join me in fighting this year to achieve everything we want for us and our family. This time next year you will be glad you did. I wish for you all a year full of health, happiness, and prosperity. You can do it. Cheers!!