Motivational Mondays (Jan. 5)

About those New Year's Resolutions... please don't analyze them right now. Just forget it.

There is no way to make a judgment on them after, what, four days. It's not possible.

If you made resolutions (or in some cases improvements) - and I would venture to say that many people did - first, be happy that you took the time to think about what needed change or improvement in your life. It really takes a lot of effort to recognize an area where you feel you have fallen short in or one you think needs a change; and it takes an even greater effort to make the conscious decision to try and make a change.

And there is no way you can tell whether you've reached your goal or not after four days. I'd venture to say that it's not possible to make a judgment after four weeks. Four months, possibly.

It's so easy to try and look back at how the past few days have gone and how your resolutions are going. On the one hand, you are trying to keep them in the forefront of your mind. Mine, for instance, I'm trying to recognize that I need to stay on top of my nutrition, wear my CPAP and run outdoors twice a week. Now, I'm not going to take the time right now to look back on that because it would be counterproductive. I'm just going to continue to try and meet my goals, plain and simple.

If you reach four days, five days, 10 days and you've consistently met your goal, it might be easy to feel overconfident, and feel some sense of false confidence. And that's when you let your guard down. That's when you revert back to old habits and you leave yourself open and vulnerable.

Now, I will say one thing. If you haven't met your goal at all, not even for one day, then perhaps it might be time to get on ball. But even then, it's too early to consider that a failure as well.

Keep your goals in front of you and try not to look back yet. There will be time to assess the goals - now, though, is too early to do so.