This mere act alone can accelerate your efforts and take you from being a Goal Setter to becoming a Goal Achiever. Let me tell you why.

Whether you record your progress on a calender, in a journal, or by using an online app, the most important thing is to do it every day. If you're anything like me, you're good at tracking when things are going well, but not so good when your behavior is less than ideal. For example, if I've done my exercise and met my nutritional goals for the day, I'm much more motivated to enter it in my tracking diary! Make the commitment that you will do the tracking every day, even if your "report" is not as good as you hoped it would be.

There is a subtle difference in the definitions of resolutions and intentions. Resolution: a resolve or determination, to make a firm resolution to do something. Intention: purpose or attitude toward the effect of one's actions or conduct. At the beginning of each year we often feel it's a good time to think about what aspects of our lives need to be worked on in order to improve our overall wellbeing and life experience. So we set what is popularly referred to as "New Year's Resolutions".

Dreaming of a better life? While thinking up ideas and building castles in the air is great fun, there comes a time where you need to get off your bottom and make things happen. Dreams are nice, but they're insubstantial and will never bring you true happiness, for that, you need to make them come true.

For years, every January I'd make resolutions and set goals for the coming year. Twelve months later, I'd see if I'd accomplished them, never considering the "how to" middle part. Of course, "good intentions" didn't get me very far, and eventually, I quit making resolutions. Do you, too, get excited and resolve to change, but within days or weeks lose interest and can't motivate yourself? Wonder why you get sidetracked by distractions or become easily discouraged when quick results aren't forthcoming? Read what I discovered about why people break resolutions and five tips on accomplishing your goals.

As each year draws to a close, it is customary for folks to enter the New Year with a fresh set of New Year Resolutions. We make a list of things we want to stop doing and those we want to start doing. New Year resolutions have become the butt of jokes because most resolutions do not go the distance. Most folks slip back to status quo in less than two months into the New Year. It seems they do not have what it takes to go the distance.

The great many of us are horrified of failure; of how it feels, and how it makes us look to others. But if we are to learn anything, we must fail. Wisdom and skill are only gained through failure.

So here you are, you have created your very own Vision Board with fantastic goals and dreams on it. You are excited about it, however it's been a while since you put it together and none of your goals have actually made it into your reality yet. Let me explain some of the reasons your visualization is not working!

Have you ever had the experience of not keeping the resolutions or promises that you made for yourself and feeling inadequate when you didn't follow through? There was a time when this would happen to me routinely. Today, I have two basic rules I attach to all of my goals.

Self awareness is the ability to stand apart, at least mentally, from our own self in order to ask ourselves questions about our values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. It is the process of becoming aware of what drives our behaviour and discerning whether or not any changes are required in order for our actions to remain congruent with our goals.