With so many of my friends and family posting “the year that was” type articles talking about the highs and lows of the previous year, since it’s nearly New Years Eve or perhaps it’s next year already by the time you read this, I thought I needed to do the same. Just like last year.

So its been another random collection of 365 days, with the change of calendar year on a Gregorian Calendar once again abritrarily placed. Or rather placed in a position that really doesn’t make that much sense.

But if we’re going to bother to take pause then let’s put our pause to good use shall we? Whilst we should re-evaluate where we are, where we’re going and where we’d like to go on a regular basis (and we hope we’re heading where we want to be heading) too many people don’t. Consider this your excuse to do so now.

Rub your finger-tips gently on the sides of your temple and picture in your mind where you’d like to be…you can have anything you want…be anyone you want…

Now snap out of it. Instead, try these more useful ideas:

• Give something you haven’t tried before a go: if you like it, keep doing it. If you don’t like it: stop doing it and try something else instead. And no, I don’t mean drugs.
• Rolling the dice and failing is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact it’s far better than sitting there and whining that life is hard whilst not actually doing anything about it.
• Stop trying to emulate other peoples success by copying them. Their successes are most likely a confluence of circumstances and a unique set of experiences in their specific lives that can’t be replicated least of all by you.
• Do things your way. If you get burned, criticised or damned, at least you’ll be damned for what you are, not what/who you’re trying to emulate. Smart people can see through copy-cats in the end and your motivation has to come from within otherwise it won’t endure.
• If you’re onto a good thing, keep doing it. Take that confidence and reinvest it in what made you succeed, not in your latest whimsy. It’s fun to experiment but don’t switch off the good bet to turning your hand entirely to a gamble on a whim.
• Stop making excuses because no-one else cares. Yes there are reasons you haven’t fixed that bug, tweaked that CSS, written that blog post, replied to that EMail, been to the gym for a week but it will take longer to explain why than it would to fix the problem most of the time. Just do it already and quit making excuses.
• Finally and most importantly: we each have a limited time when we can influence the world around us before our time is up. Choose how to spend that precious time wisely and don’t waste it.

Happy New Arbitrary Date.