Four years ago I vowed to lose weight and eat healthier and for the most part, I have succeeded at that. In fact, that was probably my most successful New Year’s Resolution. In subsequent years, I vowed to up the ante on that resolution but have mostly been able to hold the status quo. I spent time reflecting on why the resolution made in 2012 was so successful and most previous, and subsequent resolutions were not as successful (many ultimate failures). My conclusion was that three critical factors about the 2012 goal that did not apply to the previous and subsequent goals.

1. I had health and personal experiences that lead me to make the 2012 goal.
2. I thought about the 2012 goal daily
3. When I established the goal, I also created a plan to meet this objective.
4. I set a single achievable goal.

So this year I committed to taking the first day of the year and establish my goals and develop implementation plans to meet them. So today I will spend time setting my goals and objectives for the next year. The first and most important underlying principle will be to establish no more than three achievable goals and then develop and implementation plan. The three goals will each fulfill a particular category.

1. A personal self-improvement goal.
2. A professional scholarly goal.
3. A goal that merges personal and professional improvement.

I will report back tomorrow on what those goals are and then through the year, we will track these objectives in this blog. This blog will also contain my thoughts on many of the current critical education, science and social issues.

To all, I wish a very productive and happy 2016.