More than good intentions

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

This was one of the first admonitions I remember hearing at church. Back in the day, men of the cloth really loved preaching about Hell and the many ways humanity has of reaching that fearsome place. Give me that old time religion? Nope. You can keep it. I'll take the revised version designed to make you feel good and empowered because I think people as a whole feel bad enough to begin with. We may have been born with original sin but every person I've ever seen seems to have received a heaping of low self-esteem as a side order.

So what does all this have to do with anything? Why it's New Year's Day, that 24 hour period where we all contemplate changes we want to make in ourselves and/or our lives. We are all filled with good intentions on this day.

Unfortunately, good intentions are about as useless as a screen door in a west Texas dust storm. You've got to arm yourself with more than your good intentions if you want to make a change. The real weapon of change is action. You must take specific actions to achieve specific results.

So if you're writing up that fantasy list of resolutions or goals or whatever you want to call them, write down specific actions to take this month, this week, this day that will bring about change in due course. Due course means set a deadline with markers along the way to achieve your goal.

Breaking down the steps between where you are now and where you want to be actually gives you a chance of turning good intentions into achievement.

Good luck and happy new year!