Most would agree that the New Year is the best time to sell salads and gym memberships and that by late January, most promises made over champagne in the early hours of January first are slowly chipped away to leave nothing but memories of what we hoped would be.
Like you, I have read many of those tips through the years like: write it down, tell a friend, find little ways to make yourself accountable, etc. But, when it comes down to it, it really isn’t a complicated formula.
In my house, we have a little way of reasoning which has often made my children wish that I had laryngitis. When a teenager enters the room with an excuse as to why they forgot their homework and couldn’t turn it in, or an elementary school aged child tries to explain how they didn’t have time to clean their room…. The response goes a little like this: “If the house was on fire and you had to clean the room before you could leave it to save yourself from burning… you’d have gotten it done.” Or, “if I had left a $100 bill on the table next to your homework and told you that you could only have it if your homework assignment was turned in to your English teacher on time; you would have turned it in.”
Needless to say my children cringe and wish I lived on a remote deserted island when I use this line of reasoning. But, I don’t feel too badly because I often use it on myself as well.
So, as we all ring in the New Year together this year, I won’t bother you with lists of ways to keep yourself on track or bore you motivational speeches on the merits of keeping your word to yourself because you are worth it. You know all of that already. You know the whys and how’s. As my son, R, says so often: “Nothing is impossible”.
What I’d like to do instead is share a few of the things I will be doing in 2015. Not things I hope to do, want to do or will try to do. Instead, things I will do. The biggest decision has been made already: These ARE things I find worth the sacrifice to make happen. So, they will happen.
1. Become fluent in a another language and attain a basic conversational level in 1 more
2. Unveil our exciting new project in late Spring 2015
3. Add a new cooperative to our Mama Afrika family
4. Choose healthy ingredients, amazing friends and always, always… choose joy, hope and love.
I’m excited to hear what great and exciting goals you have set for yourself this next year. I’d love to hear what places you are doing to visit, what ways you will walk out of this New Year better, healthier, more successful and more well-traveled than you are entered it.
Share. Then, we can meet throughout the year for you to tell me how much fun it is along the way!
I wish you all the happiest, healthiest and most prosperous New Year that you have ever had. And yet, I hope it is only the beginning of a bunch of even better years to come.
Blessings,
Mama
Mama Afrika's World 
Your New Year message was so perfectly thought out and so beautifully written. There was no surprise there as to construction. I fully expect to hear that each of these promises to yourself is acheived. My prayers and love for you will be there throughout the new year. I will quietly be cheering you on and am waiting with great anticipation to hear what the new project entails.
Kathleen.