Why do we celebrate the new year on January 1st? In fact New Year's Day is the closest thing to being the world's only true global public holiday. It's because of the Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome which set January 1st as a first day of the new year. The Romans celebrated New Year's Day in honor of Janus. Janus is the God who had two faces, one looking forward and the other
looking backward. 

Celebrating the new year usually involves setting goals. So, what goals should we consider? Our goals should involve improvement to our physical well-being, spiritual and ethical values, financial and possessions, relationships with others, and mental or educational goals. If we really stop to take the time to analyze it, finding worthwhile goals to strive for is not really the problem. The problem is how to achieve them.

There is plenty of advice about goal setting available in books and on the Internet. However, essentially you should explore what you want and create a plan on how to get it.  To do that you need to understand what resources you will need to achieve your goals and to have a a plan for taking action.

Goal setting is often expressed as SMART, that stands for Specific, Measurable,  Achievable, Realistic and Time-based. I think some of the more well-established steps involved in achieving goals include some of the following:

1.  The goal must be always stated in the positive. it's what you want and never what you don't want because you are trying to activate your subconscious mind that only thinks in terms of positive statements.
2.  The goal must be very specific. It cannot be in generalities or vague.  Make them detailed as possible.
3. The goal must be realistic,but set your goals high.  The important thing is to ensure the outcome is within your control and can be achieved.
4. Use "chunking" by breaking your goal into achievable things within reasonable time periods.
5. Set a time limit for achieving the goal.  Make the time realistic for the goal you set however.
6. Write your goal out in complete detail. This is very important. The more focused the better. 
7. Review your goals daily if not both morning and night. Internalized them.
8. Consider having a picture of the goal you are trying to achieve that you can review and make real for you.
9. Visualize yourself as having achieved the goal. See yourself in a picture or movie inside your head as having already achieved your goal. See it as a big picture and in color in your mind. Make it come alive and it will feel within your reach. Involve your subconscious mind.
10. Replace negative self talk with positive self talk. Control what you say to yourself about your goals and yourself.

If we don't take the time to make our new year resolutions real and important to us, we will quickly let them slide like so many of our other new year resolutions. Start by deciding what changes you should make in your life. Resolve to actually achieve them. Put them in writing with illustrations of what the goals are whenever possible. Start the steps to achieve them. Review them every day. Make this the year you actually keep your resolutions for the new year. Good luck.