New Year, New You.

It's a new year. A new decade, if you will. As my clients begin to trickle back into the office after their lengthy holiday travels, or 'stay-cations' with friends and family, I often find myself asking each person, "What do you hope to see for yourself this year?" "How would you like to spend your time this decade?" I've noticed I receive more thoughtful feedback when I'm not asking the obvious, "What's your resolution?" inquiries, by re-vamping conversations examining 'time spent' and ones' 'hopes.'

Resolutions for many people are often met with cynicism, half-hearted responses, and even the occasional clueless answers. It has been made blatantly obvious, minimal thought had been put into said answers.

I think most of us who fail to meet our resolutions, most notably the 'fitness/weight loss' goal, give up so easily on the idea that we can create meaningful change for ourselves by the end of the year. In actuality, we set unreasonable goals for ourselves, which inevitably sets us up for failure, or we choose something we aren't willing to actually change.

From a motivational perspective, if anything matters to you enough in life, you'll see it through, whatever that might be. You can't stop true determinism. Humanity finds a way, always.

Whether you have already started the process of identifying your year-end or decade goals, find yourself steering the course for change, or pondering where there's room for change, know that this is time well spent in your life when executed with a healthy mindset. Personal growth leads to the seasoning and enrichment of one's life, and you are 100% totally in control over the efforts you make to shape your life how you want it to be.

Here are some helpful tips to navigate and push forward in this new year/decade with confidence:

1. Have an honest conversation with yourself about where you're at in your life — What's going well? What needs some trimming? What would you like to add to your life? Where would you like to see improvement?

2. Whatever you have identified as your area of focus for the year, make sure it is within reason and can actually be attained. If you set the bar too high, you set yourself up preemptively for disaster. Boosting one's confidence has to start with small, attainable accomplishments. When you can meet a goal or a marker, it reinforces your motivation and recognition that you can do it and creates a supportive environment for yourself to increase consistency with your efforts.

3. Map it out. Don't just announce to yourself this is what your goal will be and stumble along the way attempting to make it work without some kind of direction or roadmap of how you will accomplish this goal. If it's a skill you're working on, map out how you will check yourself to make sure you're following through — whether it's remembering to breathe before you speak, remembering to set boundaries, active reflection on your efforts, etc.

4. Hold yourself accountable. Nobody can do the work for you, you have to want it for yourself. If it helps, stop referring to it as a 'resolution' or a 'goal.' Change the language to promote that reinforcing factor that this is important to you — call it a 'commitment' to yourself, a 'pledge,' or even an 'agreement,' if you will. Whatever terminology tickles your fancy, let it stick that this is all about you and for you.

5. Have compassion for yourself. Change is hard. You might have some setbacks, and that is totally normal. Keep going. Even if you miss your goal by marginal factors, you know that you worked hard, and you made progress.

As you reflect on your life at the end of this year, you're either going to be pleased with your progress and accomplishments, or disappointed in yourself for not following through. Either way, the same conversations in your mind will be taking place. Ask yourself: Did I do what I set out to do for myself? What went well? What did not work for me? What am I willing to do differently to promote more progress?

Remember, at the end of it all this is your life. It's yours to decide how you want to live it.