Thinking of making New Year resolutions? Gordon Harley asks that you stop and give a little more thought to your plans.

January is the time for resolutions – new beginnings. The temptation is to make the kind of resolutions that are ‘right’; the ones that everyone knows are ‘good for you’ such as stopping smoking or losing weight. For most of us such resolutions are doomed to failure.

Rather than feel a failure I urge you not to make unrealistic resolutions. I would, however, urge you to think about making one resolution – and it’s about you.

Years ago I read a book called the Tibetan Book of the Dead and Dying (a surprisingly cheerful number) and in it the author contrasted the ‘laziness’ between the east and the west. In the east the people would work in order to feed their family and when they had enough they would sit around with their friends and family enjoying the sunshine and ‘chewing the fat’. In the west people work all the time. It was clear to the author that the people in the west were lazy as they were too busy to spend time on the important things in life.

This year make time for yourself to find out what is really important in your life – then live that life.

Happy New Year.