New Year's Eve has always been a time for looking back to the past, and more importantly, forward to the coming year. It is a time to reflect on changes to make and resolve to follow through on those changes.

Did your New Year’s resolutions include providing refreshments, doing an educational program, or writing a newsletter article for your local coin club? You may find these goals are easier to keep than cleaning out the garage, losing weight, or sticking to a budget.

So, why is it that New Year’s resolutions are so often abandoned? More often than not, it is because we do not have a plan on how to accomplish them. Just saying you want to do them will probably not work. Thus, the resolutions simply become a wish or a dream.

Here are some tips to help keep your New Year’s resolutions:

• It is just an idea unless it is recorded somewhere, so write it down.
• You must learn to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. Break your goal down into small manageable, incremental steps.
• Share your goal with others, so people will help and hold you accountable.
• Change is inevitable, so be flexible when your plan has to change due to other circumstances.
• As you check those incremental steps off your list, pat yourself on the back for those partial successes.
• Do not obsess, but have fun!

Hopefully you have been encouraged to make at least one of the resolutions above for your club a goal this year and develop an action plan to successfully accomplish it, helping your club to have its best year yet.

Happy New Year!