Carly: Goooooooaaaaaaaaaallllllll(s)!

With the new year fast approaching, many of us are making a mental list of our flaws and vices, trying to come up with tangible things that we can easily change about ourselves. I personally think that new year's resolutions have gotten such a bad reputation for not being completed (psssh, who keeps those things anyway?) that I don't even bother with them. It's not that I'm perfect or that I'm not interested in self-improvement; I just take a different approach to the future, and with a little help from my family, I have a set of goals for 2011.

That's right, I said family. The people we are stuck with from birth, that nag us because they love us, and drive us absolutely crazy at times. It should come as no surprise that the people that have known you the longest are helpful at coming up with things you can work towards in the realm of self-improvement, but I have a sneaking suspicion that not every family is as willing as mine to embrace one another's advice.

Our tradition started a few years ago when we all sat down and tried to make our new year's resolutions. After some "I don't know what to put" and "do we really have to do this?" sentiments, I had an idea that we should help one another with our inward reflection. This year, after Christmas-day dinner, we got out our sheets of paper, put our names on the top and passed the sheet of paper to the right. There happened to be four of my other family members at this dinner, so by the time my sheet of paper got back to me, I had four really great ideas for how I could improve myself and my life for the better in 2011. Once you get your paper back, you're not necessarily stuck with the goals set in front of you. We are all given a chance to write our own personal goal, just in case someone missed something we really wanted to accomplish, and we are given the chance to disagree with or modify any goal we don't think we can accomplish or need to work on at all.

Now, proceed with caution, as this might not work for your family, but as for me, if I accomplish all of my 2011 goals set out for me by my family, I will have one great year. Everything on my list is well within my ability to achieve and well worth the effort. Good luck!