Chapter One: Starts and Beginnings

With the New Year quickly approaching, it’s time to compile my (and for my wife and some of our friends their) obligatory list of New Year’s resolutions. For me, I like to print my list out and post it so I can really see what I want to work on and keep it fresh in my mind. I don’t aim for the moon and usually keep my resolutions manageable, but having said that, my print out has never worked - I still didn't achieve the goals I set out to accomplish. And I know that it will come as a shock  to some that I didn't achieve the goals I set for myself, but the root causes were complacency with live, lack of direction and no real motivation for change.

With the forced change (and personal reflections) 2009 brought, I really feel the urge to break free from my complacency and to break old habits and start new ones. I want to prioritize life and figure out the direction we want to go so that we can look back on 2010 and think of the great thing we did to really enjoy life while also setting ourselves up for the future. And while 2009 has not been my favorite year ever, we did lean that life is too short to pass up opportunities to try new things and that the path we were on wasn’t necessarily where we wanted to be. We re-learned that Family, Friends, Career, Traveling and Home are all very important aspects of who Amanda and I are - we just need to get back to a point in our lives where we can have them all. And even though things in 2009 didn’t turn out the way we had hoped, we made it through and can look at 2010 with a fresh perspective. I know I feel different now, and hope to carry that feeling on to the New Year.

And with that, I present to you my 2010 New Year’s Resolutions:

• Start and maintain a Blog

• Pay off 3 credit card balances

• Be more active and eat less high calorie foods (this will be the hardest)

• Vacation in Vegas for the weekend

• Vacation at the Biltmore Estate for the weekend

• Don’t hesitate to try new activities, eat new foods or try new restaurants

• Stop talking about doing things and just do them

Will I achieve them all? I hope so. They’re not unobtainable and are just a kicking off point for what I hope to accomplish in 2010. I just need to shift my mindset and not let me get in my own way. And if I can’t check these resolutions off my list, I’ll just follow the advice given on 30 Rock and “Live every week like it's Shark Week” and “Dress every day like you're going to get murdered in those clothes”. At least that is a move in the right direction! So sit back and enjoy as I attempt to check off the first item on my list!

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P.S. - If you haven't seen 30 Rock I suggest you check it out as your New Year's resolution! Seasons 1-3 are available to stream instantly on Netflix and season 4 is going on now and is available to watch on Hulu.com. It is fantastically written, hilariously acted and I think, as I proved above, full of life lessons!