YOU FINISH your list yet?

If not, you don’t have much time. It is the 31st, after all. If you don’t figure out how to be a better you in the next 15 hours or so, you’ll have to spend the next year as the current, subpar you.

Then again, if you’re like me, you can make it easy by recycling past years’ resolutions. My annual late-December self-reflection tends to yield the same goals:

• Exercise more.
• Eat better.
• Write more.
• Read more.
• Be a better husband.
• Be a better dad.

2013 is no exception. These things are exactly what I’d like to do in the coming 12 months. What I’ve discovered, though, after years of list-making, plan-writing, and app-experimenting, is that the only way to make them happen is to start between my ears.

All of these goals are achievable, even within the confines of a schedule that I cite far too often as an obstacle. But not through finding the perfect to-do software or seeking out any of the countless how-to-keep-your-resolutions recommendations.

The solution is to commit to your goals with all of your mind and all of your heart. Commit, and follow through. Build your schedule and plan your activities with your commitment at the forefront of everything. Strip away — or at least minimize — the things you do that don’t advance the commitment.

This is my overarching goal for the new year. Achieve that goal, and I will grow closer to the person I want to be.

In the meantime, feel free to use any or all of the bullets above, tweaking as appropriate for your particular situation. Oh, and Happy New Year, of course. | DL

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